In the village, a procession of monks was walking through the streets. They
were chanting in Latin and carrying wooden tablets in their hands. As they
chanted, the monks would occasionally hit themselves in the head with the
tablets, in rhythm to the chant.
"Pie Jesu domine, dona eis requiem," chanted the monks. Smack! And so on.
The procession went on through the streets. Three young men walked near the back. Although they were carrying the same tablets as the rest of the monks, their attire made them look very out of place.
"Hey, Lance, how much longer do we have to keep this up? My head's starting to hurt!" complained Fred.
"Yeah, I don't even know what these freaks are sayin'!" said Toad. "How'd we get dragged into this anyway, yo?"
"Let's just keep following them," said Lance, smacking himself in the head with his tablet and trying to ignore the pain. Why were people in the Middle Ages so stupid, anyway, he thought.
Lance and the two other members of the Brotherhood had appeared at the edge of town after emerging from the vortex. Before they could figure out where they were and how they had arrived there, the monks had come along and, without asking, corralled the mutants into following their procession. Lance tried to reassure his friends. "Look, these guys are monks or something. They're bound to lead us to someone who can tell us where we are and how we can get out of here,"
The three mutants continued on behind the procession, hoping that they would be able to find out some kind of useful information before they wound up with concussions from hitting themselves over and over again.
X
Meanwhile, a few blocks away, a large mob was running frantically through the streets, carrying a young woman above their heads. The woman, who had a very short haircut and was wearing a scarlet robe, was bound tightly in ropes. She also had a carrot tied around her face and a strainer on top of her head. The mob was shouting over and over again, "Witch! Witch! We've found a witch!"
The mob approached a tall scaffold in the town square. A knight named Bedevire was standing on top of it. A ponytail of red hair trailed out from beneath the knight's helmet. A few men out of the mob led the witch up to the top of the scaffold as the rest waited down below.
"We have found a witch! May we burn her?" asked the leader of the mob. Below, the mob cried out loudly, "Burn her! Burn her!"
The knight raised the hinged visor on his helmet to reveal not a man's face but that of a young woman. "How do you know she is a witch?" she asked.
"She looks like one!" said the leader. The crowd echoed his response.
"Bring her forward," said Bedevire.
The witch protested as the leader pushed her forwards. "I'm not a witch, I'm not a witch!" she said.
"But you are dressed as one," Bedevire observed.
"They dressed me up like this!" said the witch.
"No we didn't!" shouted the mob.
"And this isn't my nose, it's a false one!" said the witch, pointing at the carrot.
Bedevire pulled the carrot away from the witch's face. "Well?" she asked the mob leader.
"Well, we did do the nose," he admitted.
"The nose?" asked Bedevire.
"And the hat. But she is a witch!" he insisted. "Burn her!" the crowd below roared.
"Did you dress her up like this?" asked Bedevire.
"No!" protested the mob leader. "No, no, no, no, well, alright, yes, a bit, a bit,"
"She's got a wart!" said one of the other men on the platform, pointing at a small mole on the witch's face.
"What makes you think she's a witch?" Bedevire asked.
"She turned me into a newt!" claimed one of the people in the mob.
"A newt?" asked Bedevire, looking curiously down at the very-human looking man.
The man looked around nervously. "I, I got better,"
"Burn her anyway!" shouted another man in the mob, and the whole crowd began roaring and screaming again.
Bedevire held up her hands, trying to silence the crowd. "Quiet, quiet, quiet, please!" she shouted above the din. "There are ways of telling whether she is a witch," she began to explain.
"Are there? Well tell us!" insisted the mob leader. "Tell us, tell us!" shouted the mob.
"Tell me, what do you do with witches?" she asked.
"Burn them!" shouted the whole crowd immediately.
"And what do you burn apart from witches?"
"More witches!" shouted the former newt in the crowd. The man next to him slapped him in the back of the head, and then said to Bedevire, "Wood!"
"So, why do witches burn?" asked Bedevire.
The crowd was silent for a few moments, and then one man ventured a guess.
"Because, they're made out of wood?" he said, unsure of himself.
"Good!" said Bedevire. The man in the crowd chuckled a bit at his own cleverness.
"So, how do we tell if she is made of wood?" she asked, continuing her exercise in medieval logic.
"Build a bridge out of her!" said the mob leader.
"Ah, but can you not also build bridges out of stone?" Bedevire asked.
"Oh yeah, right, right," said the leader.
"Does wood sink in water?" asked Bedevire.
"No, no," said the leader.
"No, it floats, it floats!" said a man in the crowd.
"Throw her into the pond!" somebody shouted, and the crowd went wild and surged toward the scaffold.
X
While all this was going on, Scott and Patsy had entered the town square from the far end to see what all the commotion was about. Scott squinted at the woman in the red dress, trying to see who she was.
"Wanda?" he asked aloud as he recognized her.
"You know that woman, sire?" asked Patsy nervously. "Dangerous one, she's supposed to be. Heard she turns men into snails and what not. Best not to be cavorting around with her,"
"No, I don't know her. I just thought she looked familiar," Scott said, and then looked at the knight on the scaffold. There was something familiar about the knight's appearance.
Bedevire held up her arms again and the crowd quieted down. "What else floats in water?" she asked.
"Bread!" guessed one villager.
"Apples!" said another.
"Very small rocks!" called a third.
Scott suddenly recognized Jean's voice coming from the knight on the scaffold.
"Jean!" he shouted, trying to get her attention. "Jean!!!"
Bedevire did not her Scott in the crowd, and instead continued entertaining the random guesses.
"Cider! Gravy! Churches!" people were shouting. "Lead, lead!" guessed one man.
"A duck!" called Scott, quickly figuring out the riddle. The crowd grew silent and turned to look at him.
"Exactly," said Bedevire. "So, logically."
"If she, weighs the same as a duck," said the mob leader, trying to work it all out. "Then, she's made out of wood,"
"And therefore," said Bedevire, leading him on.
"A witch!" shouted the mob leader, arriving at the answer. The crowd below again erupted in shouts of "A witch! Burn her! Burn her!" Scott found himself jostled out of the way as the crowd separated to let Bedevire come down off the scaffold.
"Come, come, we shall use my largest scales!" Bedevire said and led the witch over to a large pair of suspended wicker cages. Bedevire put the witch in one of them and closed the door, then placed a duck into the second.
"Right! Remove the supports!" shouted Bedevire.
A man with a large hammer walked up to the scales. He swung the hammer and knocked away the support holding the scales balanced. For a moment neither cage moved, and then the cage with the duck sank down as the witch's cage slowly rose into the air.
"A witch! She's a witch!" the mob shouted triumphantly.
"It's a fair, cop," muttered the witch as the mob pulled her out of the cage and led her off to be burned.
X
Bedevire walked up to Scott as the mob ran off. "Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?" she asked him.
"Jean! It's me!" Scott shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Can't you recognize me? Can't you tell what's going on?" he asked desperately.
"Who is this Jean?" Bedevire asked, removing her helmet. Scott saw that it was indeed Jean Grey in the suit of armor, although she seemed to have no idea who she really was.
Who did you say you are, oh wise one?" she asked again.
"Um, I am Arthur," Scott said, disappointed that Jean didn't recognize him. "King of the Britons,"
"My liege!" Bedevire exclaimed.
Scott decided to ask Jean to come with him to Camelot. Perhaps he'd be able to jog her memory along the way.
"Good, uh, madam knight, will you come with me to Camelot, and join us at the Round Table?"
Bedevire knelt in front of Scott. "My liege! I would be honored!"
"Tell me, what is your name?" Scott asked her.
"Bedevire, my liege," she replied.
Scott drew his sword and touched Jean on her shoulder. "Then I dub thee, um, Lady Bedevire, Knight of the Round Table!"
Bedevire arose, and the three of the skipped out of town and continued on towards Camelot.
X
Meanwhile, the procession of monks had made its way into the square and was entering a church. Lance, Toad and Fred saw Scott, Jean and Patsy just as they were skipping off.
"No way!" exclaimed Lance. "Was that Summers and Jean?"
"What are they doing here?" asked Toad.
"Maybe they got picked up by that thing that brought us here," said Fred.
"Hey, let's try and catch up with 'em," said Toad. "Maybe they can help us get out of this place!"
The three mutants tried to follow after Scott and Jean, but they found themselves surrounded by the monks.
"Hey, what's going on?" asked Lance as the monks grabbed his arms. "Hey, put me down!"
The monks ignored Lance's protests and dragged the three mutants inside the church.
Inside the church, several men wearing robes were standing around a circle. A priest wearing a skull mask was conducting some kind of ritual, tracing a diagram on the floor and scattering sand around it.
The monks led the mutants into the middle of the church and placed them in the middle of the diagram.
"Man, I got a bad feeling about this, yo," said Toad, trembling nervously.
"Hey, I don't think these guys are monks," said Lance. "I think they're druids or something!"
"What are they gonna do to us?" asked Fred.
"I'm not stickin' around to find out," said Lance and clenched his fists to use his powers.
"Hey, what's wrong?" asked Toad as Lance strained, but nothing happened.
"I don't know!" Lance said. "I can't make my powers work!"
Toad tried to cough up some slime but found that his throat was suddenly very dry. "Mine aren't either!" he wheezed. "We're doomed!"
As if on cue, the man wearing the skull mask turned to face them and raised his staff. The druids began chanting, and a green light began to appear at the tip of the man's staff, growing brighter and brighter as the chants grew louder.
The leader of the druids shouted something at the three mutants and pointed his staff at them. Lance, Fred and Toad screamed as the light swallowed them up, and then they vanished.
X
Next time: Magneto and Mystique play film critics, and Scott finds a rare bit of normalcy as well as some more of his fellow "knights"
"Pie Jesu domine, dona eis requiem," chanted the monks. Smack! And so on.
The procession went on through the streets. Three young men walked near the back. Although they were carrying the same tablets as the rest of the monks, their attire made them look very out of place.
"Hey, Lance, how much longer do we have to keep this up? My head's starting to hurt!" complained Fred.
"Yeah, I don't even know what these freaks are sayin'!" said Toad. "How'd we get dragged into this anyway, yo?"
"Let's just keep following them," said Lance, smacking himself in the head with his tablet and trying to ignore the pain. Why were people in the Middle Ages so stupid, anyway, he thought.
Lance and the two other members of the Brotherhood had appeared at the edge of town after emerging from the vortex. Before they could figure out where they were and how they had arrived there, the monks had come along and, without asking, corralled the mutants into following their procession. Lance tried to reassure his friends. "Look, these guys are monks or something. They're bound to lead us to someone who can tell us where we are and how we can get out of here,"
The three mutants continued on behind the procession, hoping that they would be able to find out some kind of useful information before they wound up with concussions from hitting themselves over and over again.
X
Meanwhile, a few blocks away, a large mob was running frantically through the streets, carrying a young woman above their heads. The woman, who had a very short haircut and was wearing a scarlet robe, was bound tightly in ropes. She also had a carrot tied around her face and a strainer on top of her head. The mob was shouting over and over again, "Witch! Witch! We've found a witch!"
The mob approached a tall scaffold in the town square. A knight named Bedevire was standing on top of it. A ponytail of red hair trailed out from beneath the knight's helmet. A few men out of the mob led the witch up to the top of the scaffold as the rest waited down below.
"We have found a witch! May we burn her?" asked the leader of the mob. Below, the mob cried out loudly, "Burn her! Burn her!"
The knight raised the hinged visor on his helmet to reveal not a man's face but that of a young woman. "How do you know she is a witch?" she asked.
"She looks like one!" said the leader. The crowd echoed his response.
"Bring her forward," said Bedevire.
The witch protested as the leader pushed her forwards. "I'm not a witch, I'm not a witch!" she said.
"But you are dressed as one," Bedevire observed.
"They dressed me up like this!" said the witch.
"No we didn't!" shouted the mob.
"And this isn't my nose, it's a false one!" said the witch, pointing at the carrot.
Bedevire pulled the carrot away from the witch's face. "Well?" she asked the mob leader.
"Well, we did do the nose," he admitted.
"The nose?" asked Bedevire.
"And the hat. But she is a witch!" he insisted. "Burn her!" the crowd below roared.
"Did you dress her up like this?" asked Bedevire.
"No!" protested the mob leader. "No, no, no, no, well, alright, yes, a bit, a bit,"
"She's got a wart!" said one of the other men on the platform, pointing at a small mole on the witch's face.
"What makes you think she's a witch?" Bedevire asked.
"She turned me into a newt!" claimed one of the people in the mob.
"A newt?" asked Bedevire, looking curiously down at the very-human looking man.
The man looked around nervously. "I, I got better,"
"Burn her anyway!" shouted another man in the mob, and the whole crowd began roaring and screaming again.
Bedevire held up her hands, trying to silence the crowd. "Quiet, quiet, quiet, please!" she shouted above the din. "There are ways of telling whether she is a witch," she began to explain.
"Are there? Well tell us!" insisted the mob leader. "Tell us, tell us!" shouted the mob.
"Tell me, what do you do with witches?" she asked.
"Burn them!" shouted the whole crowd immediately.
"And what do you burn apart from witches?"
"More witches!" shouted the former newt in the crowd. The man next to him slapped him in the back of the head, and then said to Bedevire, "Wood!"
"So, why do witches burn?" asked Bedevire.
The crowd was silent for a few moments, and then one man ventured a guess.
"Because, they're made out of wood?" he said, unsure of himself.
"Good!" said Bedevire. The man in the crowd chuckled a bit at his own cleverness.
"So, how do we tell if she is made of wood?" she asked, continuing her exercise in medieval logic.
"Build a bridge out of her!" said the mob leader.
"Ah, but can you not also build bridges out of stone?" Bedevire asked.
"Oh yeah, right, right," said the leader.
"Does wood sink in water?" asked Bedevire.
"No, no," said the leader.
"No, it floats, it floats!" said a man in the crowd.
"Throw her into the pond!" somebody shouted, and the crowd went wild and surged toward the scaffold.
X
While all this was going on, Scott and Patsy had entered the town square from the far end to see what all the commotion was about. Scott squinted at the woman in the red dress, trying to see who she was.
"Wanda?" he asked aloud as he recognized her.
"You know that woman, sire?" asked Patsy nervously. "Dangerous one, she's supposed to be. Heard she turns men into snails and what not. Best not to be cavorting around with her,"
"No, I don't know her. I just thought she looked familiar," Scott said, and then looked at the knight on the scaffold. There was something familiar about the knight's appearance.
Bedevire held up her arms again and the crowd quieted down. "What else floats in water?" she asked.
"Bread!" guessed one villager.
"Apples!" said another.
"Very small rocks!" called a third.
Scott suddenly recognized Jean's voice coming from the knight on the scaffold.
"Jean!" he shouted, trying to get her attention. "Jean!!!"
Bedevire did not her Scott in the crowd, and instead continued entertaining the random guesses.
"Cider! Gravy! Churches!" people were shouting. "Lead, lead!" guessed one man.
"A duck!" called Scott, quickly figuring out the riddle. The crowd grew silent and turned to look at him.
"Exactly," said Bedevire. "So, logically."
"If she, weighs the same as a duck," said the mob leader, trying to work it all out. "Then, she's made out of wood,"
"And therefore," said Bedevire, leading him on.
"A witch!" shouted the mob leader, arriving at the answer. The crowd below again erupted in shouts of "A witch! Burn her! Burn her!" Scott found himself jostled out of the way as the crowd separated to let Bedevire come down off the scaffold.
"Come, come, we shall use my largest scales!" Bedevire said and led the witch over to a large pair of suspended wicker cages. Bedevire put the witch in one of them and closed the door, then placed a duck into the second.
"Right! Remove the supports!" shouted Bedevire.
A man with a large hammer walked up to the scales. He swung the hammer and knocked away the support holding the scales balanced. For a moment neither cage moved, and then the cage with the duck sank down as the witch's cage slowly rose into the air.
"A witch! She's a witch!" the mob shouted triumphantly.
"It's a fair, cop," muttered the witch as the mob pulled her out of the cage and led her off to be burned.
X
Bedevire walked up to Scott as the mob ran off. "Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?" she asked him.
"Jean! It's me!" Scott shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Can't you recognize me? Can't you tell what's going on?" he asked desperately.
"Who is this Jean?" Bedevire asked, removing her helmet. Scott saw that it was indeed Jean Grey in the suit of armor, although she seemed to have no idea who she really was.
Who did you say you are, oh wise one?" she asked again.
"Um, I am Arthur," Scott said, disappointed that Jean didn't recognize him. "King of the Britons,"
"My liege!" Bedevire exclaimed.
Scott decided to ask Jean to come with him to Camelot. Perhaps he'd be able to jog her memory along the way.
"Good, uh, madam knight, will you come with me to Camelot, and join us at the Round Table?"
Bedevire knelt in front of Scott. "My liege! I would be honored!"
"Tell me, what is your name?" Scott asked her.
"Bedevire, my liege," she replied.
Scott drew his sword and touched Jean on her shoulder. "Then I dub thee, um, Lady Bedevire, Knight of the Round Table!"
Bedevire arose, and the three of the skipped out of town and continued on towards Camelot.
X
Meanwhile, the procession of monks had made its way into the square and was entering a church. Lance, Toad and Fred saw Scott, Jean and Patsy just as they were skipping off.
"No way!" exclaimed Lance. "Was that Summers and Jean?"
"What are they doing here?" asked Toad.
"Maybe they got picked up by that thing that brought us here," said Fred.
"Hey, let's try and catch up with 'em," said Toad. "Maybe they can help us get out of this place!"
The three mutants tried to follow after Scott and Jean, but they found themselves surrounded by the monks.
"Hey, what's going on?" asked Lance as the monks grabbed his arms. "Hey, put me down!"
The monks ignored Lance's protests and dragged the three mutants inside the church.
Inside the church, several men wearing robes were standing around a circle. A priest wearing a skull mask was conducting some kind of ritual, tracing a diagram on the floor and scattering sand around it.
The monks led the mutants into the middle of the church and placed them in the middle of the diagram.
"Man, I got a bad feeling about this, yo," said Toad, trembling nervously.
"Hey, I don't think these guys are monks," said Lance. "I think they're druids or something!"
"What are they gonna do to us?" asked Fred.
"I'm not stickin' around to find out," said Lance and clenched his fists to use his powers.
"Hey, what's wrong?" asked Toad as Lance strained, but nothing happened.
"I don't know!" Lance said. "I can't make my powers work!"
Toad tried to cough up some slime but found that his throat was suddenly very dry. "Mine aren't either!" he wheezed. "We're doomed!"
As if on cue, the man wearing the skull mask turned to face them and raised his staff. The druids began chanting, and a green light began to appear at the tip of the man's staff, growing brighter and brighter as the chants grew louder.
The leader of the druids shouted something at the three mutants and pointed his staff at them. Lance, Fred and Toad screamed as the light swallowed them up, and then they vanished.
X
Next time: Magneto and Mystique play film critics, and Scott finds a rare bit of normalcy as well as some more of his fellow "knights"