As he lay on the medical slab, Johnathan was aware that Jean was sitting next to his slab, monitoring his progress or something. He drifted back to sleep. He had been having strange dreams lately, dreams where some figure was trying to talk to him, trying to tell him something urgent. The figure acted as if this piece of information was life altering. As Johnathan fell back into his uncomfortable sleep, he again dreamed of the figure, but this time the figure wasn't talking, just standing there looking at Johnathan. Johnathan walked forward in his dream and stood in front of the man, whose face was covered by a white hood.
"All right," he said. "Who are you? Why do I keep dreaming about you? Are you some sort of sub-conscious image? Are you someone I knew before? Answer me!"
The figure stepped closer, causing Johnathan to step back some. "No, I'm not someone you've ever met before now. I'm also not part of your sub-conscious. I'm real. I'm talking to you through forth-dimensional telepathy. I'm talking to you from two thousand years in the future. I'm your descendant. And I'm here to help you."
Johnathan was a little taken back by what had just been said. "No way! I don't buy it! Even Professor Xavier can't talk through time. Why should I believe you?"
"Because you know its true," the hooded figure said calmly.
"Then what are you here to help me with?"
The air around the dream state changed just like it had for Caileen when she had visited Johnathan's memories. Johnathan suddenly found himself in a war scene, some distant war scene from the future. "This," said the hooded man, "is my time. A world filled with war and death where only the strongest survive and the rest are fodder. My entire family is dead. All my friends who have fought with me through out the years are dead. I'm the only one left fighting against a monstrosity who only wants to kill the world for its weakness."
"I'm sorry," Johnathan said. "But I don't understand how this matters for me. How are you here to help me when you've got so many problems there?"
The hooded figure nodded and turned towards Johnathan. "I'm here to help us both. I'm hoping that by helping you change events in your present, this nightmare might be avoided."
"Events like what?" This really had Johnathan worried. He could feel the truthfulness of the hooded man's words. He somehow knew that they were true.
The air changed again as the hooded man turned away. Now the scene showed a field with a decrepit old building. What was the most horrifying was that in the field were all of the New Mutants along with Scott and Logan. "This," began the hooded man, "is happening right now, in your time. According to the histories that have been passed down in the family, this battle was where most of these people died. They were overwhelmed and slaughtered. The only one who survived was Caileen, and the sentinels captured her and tortured her for various years before you and other X-Men were able to rescue her. The success of the new sentinels caused other anti-mutant groups to take courage and begin to construct their own sentinels and begin to hunt down mutants everywhere. This mutant war went on for several hundred years. While humans and mutants fought each other over stupid differences, the real threat to the world simply waited and built up a strong enough force that when the real battle started and the humans and mutants finally wised up and joined forces, it was too late. Eventually in this war, Caileen herself died leaving you alone with the children you had. In the end, they all died."
"Wait a minute," Johnathan said. "You said that war didn't start for several hundred years, how could Caileen and I be alive during that time?"
The hooded figure shook his head. "I meant that she died during the mutant war with the humans."
"Oh," said Johnathan. "Wait! We had children? We were married?"
The hooded figure nodded again.
"Then, how are you here to help me?"
The figure looked at Johnathan while Johnathan looked at the battle being shown to him. While everyone was taking down many, many sentinels, they did look to be tiring, where the sentinels seemed to keep coming. The figure placed his hand on Johnathan's shoulder to get his attention. "Mutant dna is just as unimaginative as human dna. It repeats every so often just the same. I have your exact genetic structure." The figure threw his hood back showing that he indeed had the exact same face as Johnathan. "And with your structure," he continued, "I also have your powers. I've learned how to control them better since I'm a little older than you." The figure didn't seem that much older, but Johnathan believed him anyway, though something did seem off. "I will help you control your powers during this current battle, if you want. It might be the deciding factor that could prevent my nightmare from happening. It will also save your friends."
Johnathan thought for a moment before answering. "All right, lets do it. But, won't this change history so that you would never have contacted me in the first place, if it works?"
The figure smiled and shook his head. "You'll learn, as you progress, that time really has no effect on either one of us." With that, the dream faded and Johnathan opened his eyes.
Charles was teaching telepathy defenses to the class of Generation X with Emma Frost, their chief mistress, when the institute shook with a loud explosion. Charles quickly did a mental scan of the area and found that the school was not under attack, but that something had happened in the infirmary. Maneuvering his hover chair out the door, he mentioned to Emma by telepathy to take care of her students. Charles met Hank in the hall and they both got into the elevator together. When they got to the infirmary, they found a cloud of dust settling to the floor, where Jean was picking herself up.
"Jean," Hank began. "What happened?"
"I don't know," she answered. "Johnathan opened his eyes and the next thing I knew there was a loud explosion. I don't even know where he is right now." She pointed out the empty slab where Johnathan had lain for several weeks without moving.
Charles pointed at the wall behind Jean and said, "I think our young friend has left the school." Jean looked behind herself and saw a large, smoking hole in the wall that led all the way to the surface.
"Oh my stars and garters," was all Hank could say.