A Plane Crash

July 11, 1982; 12:38 pm GMT+2; Cairo, Egypt, Africa

"Mommy, you're pretty," little Ororo said as she and her mother walked to the door of their apartment.

"Thank you," her mother smiled. "You are very beautiful too little one. That's why we named you Ororo; because it means beauty." Ororo giggled as she and her mother entered the apartment. The bomb alert siren had only lasted for a few seconds. This had been happening for quite awhile now. The siren would sound but would quickly be turned off after the threat was quickly averted.

"Mommy, why do I have white hair?" she asked. Her mother closed the apartment door.

Ororo and Bishop turned the corner of the wall they had been leaning against. "You were an annoying little kid," Bishop chuckled.

"Yes, but now I am a stern, mature woman who has the ability to wield lightning," Ororo said as a playful threat.

"So what's our plan of action?" Bishop asked, lifting his brown eyes towards the door where little Ororo and her parents were. "Evidently this is the day we came back to change."

"Surprise!" came a yell from Ororo's dad inside the apartment. Ororo quickly had a flashback. It was all coming back to her... this very day, the day that her parents would die and she gain her claustrophobia was her birthday!

Her eyes began to water as she turned away from the door and began walking towards the staircase that had brought them up to this floor. She couldn't cry. She wouldn't cry. She just needed time to recuperate. When she had finished hovering down several flights of stairs and was back outside of the apartment building the snow was melted and the sun was back to its normal scorching presence.

Bishop had stayed upstairs. If Ororo was too scared to go through with it, he would. He knocked on the apartment door immediately after the "Happy Birthday" song was done.

"Who is it?" came a man's voice from inside the apartment. At the same time the door was opened. "Who are you?" Ororo's father asked, using his muscular body to block the doorway.

"Are you David Munroe?" Bishop asked, putting out his hand for a handshake.

David frowned, "I know who I am; that wasn't the question."

"My name's Bishop – John Bishop," he answered, his hand still extended outward.

"Mr. Bishop," David said. "What's your business at my door?" David was very precautious with people while this war was going on. He was especially cautious now that an American was at his door.

"Mr. Munroe, your family is in danger," Bishop said sternly. "If you don't leave this apartment within the next few hours you and your wife will die." David frowned and slammed the door in his face.

"So much for the passive, direct approach," Bishop mumbled to himself, leaning against the wall.

July 11, 1982; 12:50 pm GMT+2; Cairo, Egypt, Africa

Ororo was sitting on the roof of the apartment complex, her hair resting on her back and shoulders, as the still air sent no relief to the sun's rays. The clear, blue sky was one to be remembered. How many times had she taken a perfect sky away from unsuspecting people? Too many times. And why had she done it? Of course the obvious answer was she needed to do so to fulfill her duties as an X-Man, bringing rain to the nicest of days, freezing temperatures to the normal hardships of winter, and scorching heat to the humid and dry summers. And she had done all these things to help the X-Men. Or had she?

Why had she agreed to join the X-Men? What person in his or her right mind would leave worship, adoration, and peace for a life of being a 'do-gooder'? Perhaps being alone in her sanctuary had left her with nothing to do except think of the miseries of her childhood while she waited for the next burnt offering to be sent up to her throne. When Xavier came she had complied so quickly and easily to join him in rescuing his original team. Had she been hoping, all this time, that someone would come to take her away? Maybe that's why she had left. Maybe that's why she had taken perfect skies and turned them into gray nightmares for the past few years. Maybe that's all the X-Men meant to her: an escape from emotional torment.

If that was all the X-Men meant to her then it wasn't worth reminiscing about. She lifted her head and wiped her moist eyes before standing up on the roof and looking into the clear sky once more. She was going to go through with her task. Her future and the meaning of her life depended on her changing her past.

Just as she turned away from the sky she heard an explosion in the air. She lifted her eyes once more to the bright sky to see a fiery object falling quickly towards her position. She lifted her hands immediately and the blue sky was gray in a matter of seconds, spewing rain and wind in a confused maelstrom. Ororo quickly went through her arsenal of weaponry in such a situation. A tornado would through the jet off course but would also destroy the entire city. Lightning might knock the jet off course but might also cause it completely explode and rain oil and fire. Ice would freeze the jet quickly but would still cause it to fall. There was only one way that she could think of in the little time she had: a direct approach. She quickly flew from the roof, her hands stretched out towards the falling jet as wind began to push against the jet and slow it's free fall.

The bomb alert siren began to alarm and the people below screamed as they ran away from the falling fire. "Bright Lady, give me the strength!" Ororo grunted. Her eyes were closed completely as her eyebrows quivered under the pressure. The jet was still falling at an alarming rate.

...

Outside the Munroe's apartment door Bishop had pulled out one of his futuristic weapons and was aiming it at the door. He quickly pulled the trigger and with skill shot directly into the keyhole of the doorknob, opening the door. He let himself in and quickly spotted the family who were still unaware of the falling aircraft.

"What do you think you're doing?" David Munroe yelled at Bishop quickly standing to his feet before noticing the big gun in the man's hand.

"Listen to me," Bishop unconsciously waving the weapon in the air. "I want each of you out of this apartment right now!" His voice was commanding but all they saw was the man's weapon as they slowly made their way towards him. "Hurry up!" Bishop's eyes widened and the gun dropped from his hand as the plane crashed into the apartment building and the flames quickly engulfed the room.

"Ah!" N'Dare, Ororo's mother, grunted as she fell to the floor from the impact, taking her daughter and husband down with her. Bishop could no longer see them through the heavy smoke.

"Stay low!" David commanded his family and they crawled quickly across the floor. Perhaps to quickly and with not enough caution. The floor began to cave in below them and all of a sudden broke loose.

"Daddy!" little Ororo screamed with fear as she fell towards the room of flames below.

"Ororo!" David and N'Dare yelled in unison as they watched their daughter fall towards the fire.

"I have you," Ororo said, rescuing her younger self from falling into the flames. She held herself, or rather her younger self, tightly as she flew between the flames on the ceiling and the flames on the floor and out of the glassless windows of the apartment building. "I am going to put you down," Ororo said. "But you must not come back towards this building. I will rescue my – your parents." Little Ororo was whimpering as tears fell from her face. They finally escaped the overwhelming heat and smoke of the building and the scorching ninety degrees actually felt like a cool breeze.

Ororo placed her younger self on the ground away from the building, "Stay here, little one." Ororo flew back into the building carried by the winds as she listened to the prayers of her father. She used his voice to find him.

"Let go of the wood," Ororo said as she hovered near her father. "Do not be alarmed, I am going to take you to safety." She smiled, putting on as friendly as an expression as she could while trying her best not to choke from the overwhelming smoke. David quickly complied and took her hand. "Where is my mother?" Ororo asked.

"Who?" David said, choking as he did so.

"N'Dare," she said. "Where is N'Dare?"

"She fell," he said with overwhelming sadness in his voice. She had not noticed his tears until just then and had only begun to comprehend what the prayers he was saying were about when she had reentered the building.

Ororo quickly flew out of the building with her father meeting the bright light and the cooler air once more before placing him down on the ground and falling on her knees. "Why?" she cried, tears falling from her face. "Bright Lady, why did you have to take her?"

"Daddy, why is the angel crying?" little Ororo asked, grabbing her father's arms. "And where's mommy?" Tears began to well up in her eyes as she looked at her father's grim expression.

"David!" came N'Dare's familiar voice, "Ororo!" Both little Ororo and older Ororo lifted their heads as N'Dare called their – her name.

"Bishop! You rescued her!" Ororo smiled as she Bishop approached her with burns and wounds all over his tattered body. "Thank you!" Ororo got up out of the sand and ran to Bishop, embracing him tightly and then turned to look at her family and herself who were all safely huddled with each other.

"Mommy, the angel rescued me!" little Ororo said, pointing to Ororo, who did not notice she was wearing silvery-white clothing until now. She guessed she would look like the typical angel.

"Who are you?" David asked, walking in front of his family and to Ororo, squinting his eyes as he looked inside of her blue orbs. "I know you... don't I?"

"You never will know me as I am today," Ororo sighed as her body began to dissipate. Before long Bishop's body began to do the same. The future was changing and these two did not exist to have ever been known as they were. "What will happen to us?" she asked Bishop, lifting her eyes towards him and slowly inching towards him.

"Like I told you before, if we're meant to be together, we'll find each other," he said. "Somehow we'll find each other."

"Bishop, I love you," she said, as tears began falling down her face. The two embraced and stared in each other's eyes before inching even closer for their last kiss.

"Don't go!" little Ororo yelled, running towards their fading bodies and hugging their legs. Before long she was embracing nothing but air.

January 2003

The world was completely changed, thanks to Ororo's venture into her past. There had never been a woman named Storm of the X-Men. She had never met Jean Grey, Scott Summers, Professor Xavier, or any of the other people who had become her surrogate family. She had her real family this time around.

With Storm having no part in the X-Men, having never been recruited by Xavier to rescue the original X-Team there was no such thing as the X-Men. Jean, Polaris, Iceman, et cetera... they had all perished on the island of Krakoa. When the newly formed team had come to the rescue they had also perished. Without Storm there they didn't have the ability to defeat the monster. There was no one to give Polaris the charge she needed.

With no X-Men in existence it was a piece of cake for Magneto to start his mutant-human war. After he had won the war he had decided not to oppress the humans who were yet alive and now there was harmony amongst North and South America. No anti-mutant hysteria, no lifetime of fighting. Everything had completely changed.

November 27, 2003; 12:00pm EST; Myrtle Beach, SC

"With the power invested in me by the Lord God Almighty and the legal rights given to me by our earthly leader King Magnus, I now pronounce thee man and wife," the young minister said as he closed the marriage book in front of him and smiled at the two newlyweds. "You may kiss the bride."

Tensions in the sanctuary went to their all time highs as the veil was lifted off of the beautiful woman's face. She was twenty-six years old, the daughter of a successful journalist, the best weatherwoman the world had to offer, and now she was married. Ororo Munroe, whose legal name was now Ororo Bishop, wrapped her arms around her husband, John Bishop, and kissed him after they connected lips.

"John, you've made me the happiest woman alive," Ororo smiled as they released from the kiss.

"You're an amazing woman, Ororo," he said

Ororo walked with her husband down the aisle, smiling at family, and waving at longtime friends. They walked outside of the church and were met with fireworks being produced by their adopted daughter Jubilation Lee. Up in the sky was a banner being flown around by their friend from Mississippi, Tracey Lincoln. She grinned from the sky, her auburn hair blowing with its white streak.

Ororo smiled at her friend and then slowly her countenance began to drop. "What's the matter, love?" John asked, looking her in the eye as they stood outside the church.

"I can't but help think this life is too perfect for me," she said, lifting her eyes to the sky. "The angel that saved me... I can't help but to think she was a sad person. If she was sad what gives me the right to be happy?"

"Whoever she was," he said, kissing her on the forehead. "She rescued you and your family for a reason... and that reason is that she wanted you to be happy. To never have to go through whatever hardships she knew you would one day experience."

"You know what," Ororo smiled. "You're absolutely right. I thank God for that." Who would've ever thought a plane crash could change so much?