Chapter Five: Catastrophe!
Almost as soon as Sir Charles had made his decision the core computer began to record a flux in the Keepers home world. The root dimension was being altered, and thereby altering the sub-dimension that Sir Charles had been chosen from.
In the root directory, a boy known as Legion was traveling back in time intent of executing Magneto before he can become a problem to Legions father Charles Xavier. His trip is bound to failure and will rewrite his dimension and all those attached, creating the horror known as the Age of Apocalypse.
In a few short nanoseconds, as Sir Charles smoothed his beard, he was erased from existence.
The stations onboard computer scanned for life signs and finding none, it fell back on its most trusted sub-routines. It found the dimensional locator and identifier for the next keeper and began the retrieval process.
The son of Logan and Marie stood in that moment framed in a doorway. For a moment his mother began to rise, a habitual greeting for a man long dead, whom she constantly mistakes him for. Then she sat, in mid rise, and slowly sank back toward the chair.
"Mom." He watched her turn noncommittally toward him. "I wanted to tell you mom. I'm going to travel this summer. I won't be around. But Uncle Scott and Aunt Betsy have promised to look in on you and see if you need anything."
Marie smiled slowly as though the thought of old friends warmed her.
"You know I love you, right Mom?"
Her chin suddenly knotted up and her face contorted. Her eyes glazed with tears that began to roll down her face. She raised her hand halfway to her face as though to wipe them away, and then she simply let it hang there in space in front of her, as though she had forgotten why she was moving it.
And she looked her son in the face, then away, quickly, as a deep sob caught in her throat.
"Shhhh.." He stepped in to the room and fell to his knees beside her. He lowered her hand for her back to her lap and he wiped her tears off her face. "Shhh..." he said again.
And he opened the window.
The soft, cool, breeze seemed to distract her.
Outside the cabin stood Scott Summers. His adopted nephew came out slowly, closing the door with all the care and tenderness that he felt toward his mother. His saunter was slow. He was composing himself.
"Uncle Scott?" He asked, then he was gone.
Scott Summers whipped his head around twice before he realized he was alone. "Yeah?" He asked out loud to no one in particular.
Inside, Marie was again half raised from her chair, looking out her window. She had seen that man again, that man that looked like Logan but wasn't, he had been standing there, saying things, and then outside. He should have left with Scott. Always with Scott before he goes away. Never in all her years of seeing the man had he ever vanished in mid-conversation while she watched through the window. Something tugged at her about the mans powers. He had other people's powers. Maybe it was one of the other powers. To vanish at inappropriate moments. But something inside told her that this wasn't the case. The word 'lost' drifted through her mind but refused to be identify what or who was lost. She began to sink back down in to the chair. *Not lost*. She hoped. *Just gone away*.
