Chapter One:

In the darkness on the second floor, a teenage girl lay awake. Cocooned in the warmth of her bed, she watched the luminous hands of her bedside clock as they moved slowly round. She waited and watched, listening to the sounds of her sleeping roommates. It was amazing how loud certain sounds could be when there was no other noise. Her eyes followed the minute hand of the clock until it joined its smaller counterpart on 12. It was midnight. The girl sat up in bed, pushed her covers aside, then slowly and quietly stood on her feet. She listened carefully, making sure that all three of her dorm-mates were sound asleep. The other girls showed no signs of stirring, so she walked across the room to the door, her bare feet making no noise on the carpeted floor. She moved cautiously past the last bed, knowing its occupant to be a light sleeper. Finally reaching the door without disturbing any of them, she carefully grasped the handle, and pulled open the door. The girl took one last glance at her roommates to make sure they were still asleep, then she slipped through the doorway and closed it quietly behind her.

He was waiting for her at the end of the corridor. Beside him was the open door to one of the unused dormitories. She moved noiselessly down the corridor towards him, listening to the sounds of snoring coming from the boys' dormitory across the passageway from the girls'. He took a step towards her as she approached. They came together and kissed, just once, lightly, then he stood aside to allow her to precede him into the empty room. One last glance backwards told them the coast was clear. Both of them knew the danger of being discovered. Not only was this a boarding school, but having their respective parents among the teaching staff made things doubly difficult.

A small, nervous smile crossed her face as he closed the door gently, the two of them alone inside the empty dormitory. Standing beside the bed nearest the window, she suddenly realised how anxious she was. It wasn't the first time she'd been in this position, but she felt this nervous every time. He held her lightly, his hands around her waist, feeling her delicate, willowy form through the thin material of her nightie. Her arms moved up, brushing against his, to slip gently around his neck, holding him loosely, her right hand moving up to caress the back of his head, feeling his wavy hair flowing between her fingers. They came together and stayed together, kissing passionately, feeling the warmth and delicious sensation of their bodies pressed tightly against each other. After a while, through unspoken agreement they moved downwards, still holding on to one another, until they lay side by side on the bed. His hand gently caressed her throat, his fingers seeking out the highly sensitive little flaps of skin at the opening to her gills. She giggled nervously, enjoying the sensation.

"Y – you know I love it when you – when you do that…" she whispered to him.

"Yes…" he replied softly. "I know…"

He kissed her again, his lips brushing lightly against hers, and he murmured, "Are we going to…I mean, are you ready to…?"

She hesitated, then sighed, "I – I don't think so. It – no, I don't feel ready. And it – it doesn't feel right…"

"It doesn't feel right?"

"No, I – I don't feel like I wanna. It doesn't feel right to – to make love when we're not m – married …"

"I suppose you're right. Well, despite the overwhelming temptation, your virtue shall remain untouched for another night."

The girl smiled, "It – it better."

"Of course, you won't be able to hold me back forever…"

She kissed him, "Yes I will…"

"Some day I'll lose control and – "

"Not before we – we're married, you won't…"

He kissed her fondly, running his hand through her longish, downy hair, gently massaging her spine with his other hand. She gave a little sigh of pleasure, and drew closer to him, nuzzling her head underneath his chin, enjoying his warmth and the feeling of comfort and security that his arms gave. He relaxed, warm and contented holding his girlfriend close to him. He felt himself slipping away…his arm around her loosened…

"Hey, we – we can't fall asleep here," she whispered. "If – if we get caught, we – we'll be in real trouble. Somebody might come in and – and find us…"

"We'll tell them we sleepwalked…" he murmured absent-mindedly.

She giggled, "Yeah, but if your – if your mom and dad find us, or – or my parents…"

He made no reply, and she too found herself drifting off to sleep…

Suddenly both of them froze at the sound from outside the room. Footsteps were approaching. They clutched each other and listened with horror as the footsteps stopped outside the door. They looked around the room in desperation, but there was nowhere to hide. The door was pushed open and the light switched on.

"What's going on in here?"

The man in the doorway looked around the room, his eyes finally lighting on the bed nearest the window. The sheets were a little rumpled, but the bed was empty. So were the other beds, and the rest of the room. Strange…he was sure that he'd heard something…

"There's nobody here," he said to the woman behind him. "Weird; I could have sworn that I heard voices. I could have sworn I heard our daughter and the boy…"

"Perhaps you're beginning to hear things in your old age," she said mischievously. "Poor Chris."

He yawned, "Perhaps I just need more sleep. I'm off to bed. I'll see you in the morning, Fliss."

"Yeah, see ya."

He switched off the lights and they closed the door before moving back off the way they had come. A few moments passed, until their footsteps could no longer be heard, then the two teenagers breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"That was close," Gary Rosiçky whispered, as he relaxed his chameleonic camouflage and the two of them materialised back into view.

"Yeah, t – too close," Marina Forrester murmured sleepily, as they both drifted off once more.

-

-

-

The nuclear missile struck with deadly accuracy and without remorse, giving birth to a gigantic mushroom cloud that measured almost a mile across, and annihilating every living thing within the blastwave radius. Every animal, plant and tree was burnt to a cinder; every vehicle was torn apart and flung headlong by the power of the explosion; every building was ripped from its foundations, broken into millions of pieces and hurled into the air. Every single person – male and female, young and old, human and mutant – was massacred.

And then there was nothing. The landscape lay dark, forbidding, unmoving – dead. Not a soul stirred, not an object moved in what had moments ago been a thriving metropolis. A few fires still burned, and a gentle breeze began to stir some smaller pieces of rubble – other than that, everything was silent and still. And all around hung the invisible murderous force of radiation left over from the nuclear blast – ensuring that this would remain a wasteland for centuries to come.

Here and there were standing piles of stone that could just about be recognised as buildings: here a church, there a school, over here a tenement block. There could have been no escape. With virtually no warning of the missile's approach, there was little chance that anybody had got out of the city alive before the blast. What city was this? It was unfamiliar. Which part of the world had just been obliterated? Which part of the human-mutant race had just been wiped out of existence forever? Had any of these people known what was coming? Had any of them known they were facing their last moments alive? Had tiny, innocent children looked up the sky, seen the missile, and asked, "What's that, Mummy?"? To those old enough to know what was going on, the horror and shock would have been unimaginable. Was there anything worse than the last few seconds before a sudden and imminent disaster, knowing that death was nigh, with enough time to fear it but not enough time to do anything about it?

Annie Rosiçky awoke, jolting upright in bed, the shock and the terror still coursing through her veins and her thoughts. It wasn't real. It wasn't real, she told herself. Relief flooded through her, and she lay back in bed. Taking a deep breath, Annie calmed herself. Two more deep breaths, and her heartbeat had slowed down to normal. The fear was over. It had only been a dream. She couldn't believe she was still having nightmares about a nuclear apocalypse. It had been – how long, how many months? – since the genetically created horrors, who called themselves the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, had tried to launch a nuclear missile with the potential to destroy all life on Earth. The Horsemen had been destroyed, and Annie had endured more than a few sleepless nights afterwards. She remembered on countless occasions waking up in the middle of the night shaking with terror, in a cold sweat, dreaming of nuclear desolation and all the terrible things that would have happened if the Horsemen hadn't been destroyed.

She closed her eyes and tried to get back to sleep. It was over. The Horsemen were gone. She had to forget about them and move on. Annie was sixteen years old and had her whole life in front of her. Why couldn't she just forget about the Horsemen? Why couldn't her mind just let go of them? None of her friends had these problems. Did they? She didn't think so. Gemini's past held nightmares enough already, but she was determined not to let any of them take over her life. Cassandra was only concerned with the future, and rarely dwelt on the past. Marina too had enough on her mind as it was. As for the guys, well, Annie didn't spend much time thinking about them. Dominic and Vertigo behaved so childishly, especially when they were together; Annie had little time for them. Atlas was different from other people; he cared little for anything other than nature. As for Gary – Annie's younger brother – well, perhaps he was the exception. Perhaps he was the one person who understood the way Annie felt. Really, they were the only two who had had to do battle with the Horsemen, to look into the black hearts of those warped and distorted creatures. It was an experience that had shocked them both to the core, and something they would probably never forget.

Annie shivered. It was too cold. Opening her eyes again, she glanced over towards the window. As she had suspected, one of her room-mates had left it open. Pushing aside her covers and standing on her bare feet, Annie walked over and pulled the window closed. It had probably been Gemini who had opened it; she hated being too hot in bed. It had been quite warm when they had gone to bed the night before, and Annie could see the younger girl now, sleeping with her duvet pushed aside and nothing but a thin white nightdress to protect her from what was now a cold night. Annie reached for Gemini's covers and pulled them over her friend.

Then a frown crossed Annie's face. Marina's bed was empty…and there was no noise coming from the girls' little ensuite shower and bathroom. Where was she? Annie pushed out her telepathic senses. In the room next door she could sense Gary and Marina. They weren't supposed to be there! They were supposed to be sleeping in separate dorms! They were lying close together – far too close for Annie's liking. She knew Marina was too young and too messed up in her mind to begin a sexual relationship. She knew that Gary understood this…but whether it would register in his mind during a moment of passion, she couldn't be sure. Guys could be unpredictable at the best of times. Then she relaxed. Marina was asleep, and Gary was heading that way too. They weren't doing anything they might have regretted later. Reassured, Annie slid silently into her own bed, taking care not to wake the light-sleeping Cassandra in the next one along, and within minutes she too was unconscious.

-

-

Neil Rosiçky took a deep breath as he neared the end of the platform and the machine that stood there. It was a risk. It was always a risk, every time he did this. Was it really necessary? He reflected on this as his hands picked up the helmet. The Cerebro machine had lain virtually untouched since the Professor had died; nobody had been able to use it, but there was obviously no point in removing such a fantastic piece of technology. Neil knew that both he and his telepathic children did not and would never have the level of control Xavier had had over this machine, but still he felt himself drawn to it. He liked to use it at least once every few days, as the Professor had done, just to 'keep an eye' on things. To make sure there were no new anomalies out there, no new enemies that might threaten the existence of life. Enemies like Magneto, like Mindstorm, like the Horsemen.

Except there were no enemies any more. All of the above were dead. Pyro's adoption of Gemini had done a lot to heal the wounds that had been inflicted on his heart, and had, if not destroyed, certainly subdued the hatred he felt for humanity. He still had no time for the humans, but thanks to his new daughter he seemed to have convinced himself that there were other ways to protect mutants, besides simply killing everybody else indiscriminately. And without Gary and the psychotic Recyclo by his side, he wouldn't have posed the same threat as before. Nobody had risen to take his place as leader of the Brotherhood. Most of his former protégés were now students here, at the mansion. Scarab and Mole had left, but Neil knew they had no interest in carrying on the fight without their leader.

So there were no more enemies. Rumours abounded that Mystique was still alive, but she hadn't made any threatening moves since Magneto had died, and didn't seem likely to. Was the world safe? The others seemed to think so, but Neil wasn't convinced. He knew that no mutant could succeed in defeating him or his friends, not while Annie and Gary were around. Any threat, if one were to emerge, would have to rely on stealth, not strength, to cause damage. Subtle cloak-and-dagger type stuff, Gary would have called it. That was why Neil forced himself to take the risk and keep using the machine, because he knew that any serious threat would be one that struck from hiding, and disappeared just as quickly. They had to do everything they could to spot any possible attack before it came, to prevent it from causing any damage, physical or political.

I'm just doing what I think is best, he thought, I'm just taking the precautions I think are necessary, to make sure we aren't caught out like we were by the Horsemen.

Were there other enemies out there in the world? Of course there were. Just because he couldn't see them didn't mean they weren't there, and it certainly didn't mean he could relax and stop being prepared for the worst to happen. There would always be evil in the world. Evil existed inside everybody. Neil knew it was just a question of how hard you tried to stop yourself from doing what you knew was wrong. It was your actions and decisions that determined what you were. There was no way to destroy evil without destroying the free will of every person who was capable of choosing to do wrong.

There could still be mutants out there, planning the destruction and murder of innocent lives. Neil urged his friends to be prepared to meet these threats at any moment. Some people thought Neil was just being paranoid, some thought he was just being a pessimist. He thought he was simply being a realist. He didn't share the optimism that other people naturally felt. Optimism was illogical. Past experience and his mind-reading abilities led Neil to expect the worst from people. People weren't naturally good. People were naturally evil. Evil was always going to rear its ugly head, and somebody had to be there to fight it when it did. It was foolish and naïve to think otherwise.

Neil had never been able to see the good in people the same way Xavier had. Could he have done all this – founded the school and headed the X-Men – the way the Professor had done? Of course not. For one thing, he simply didn't have the way with people, the way with words, to make people feel relaxed and confident and positive about themselves, the way the Professor had done. Xavier had tamed the angry beast that was Wolverine, given him a purpose and a hope. Neil had failed to do the same with the rage-fuelled creature that was his own son. It was Marina who had tamed Gary.

Gary was the perfect example of the way Neil felt. His son had been brought up in a stable and loving family environment, had had plenty of experience of living with humans, had always been taught to use his powers to help and benefit others – and yet Gary had given into his angry impulses and had run away to join the Brotherhood. Deluded into believing he was doing the right thing, he had very nearly caused irreparable damage to human life on Earth. If that proved one thing, it was that evil was born in people. Regardless of their upbringing or education, a person was not immune to temptation.

The only thing that would go some way towards combating evil was truth. If people could be made to see the truth, then there would be less evil committed through ignorance and prejudice. That was why Neil believed in what the school was trying to do, educating these children and teenagers about the way they should lead their lives and use their powers. That was why he believed in reaching out to the humans and trying to form a bond of understanding between the two sides. There was so much anger and mistrust between humans and mutants, that people doing the wrong thing and people getting hurt were inevitable results. If both sides could be made to understand the other's point of view, and learn to co-exist peacefully…well, it would at least be a positive step.

The Professor had dreamed of the same thing, but even with all his dedication and powers of persuasion, he hadn't seen it come to pass. Part of Neil wondered whether that meant it was impossible. If the Professor couldn't do it…he sighed. He knew he wasn't Xavier. Neil's arrogance had once allowed him to consider himself the Professor's equal – and they had almost lost everything as a result of it. He would never make that mistake again. He wasn't Xavier. He was Rosiçky. He couldn't do the Professor's job; nobody could. And yet, somebody had to. Neil sighed again, knelt in front of the machine, and gingerly placed the helmet upon his head. He knew what to expect, having done it enough times, but he was never quite prepared for the rush of power that suddenly seized his mind and fused it with the telepathic amplifier.

Focus on the mutants, he told himself.

Trying to focus on the humans would have been suicidal. There were too many of them, and the sheer volume of telepathic power involved would have blown his mind to shreds. The mutants…focus on the mutants…OK, here goes…

He could sense them now: his friends; his wife; his daughter; his son; their friends; and the younger students. Most of them were asleep; it was still early in the morning. Neil preferred to come down here when everybody else was asleep, as it made it a lot easier to concentrate.

He wasn't exactly sure of the best way to identify potential threats; normally he looked for any mutants who were feeling particularly strong emotions. It might be anger, hate or excitement, in which case it might represent a threat; or it might be fear, sorrow, or pain, in which case it might be a mutant in danger, in need of rescue. It wasn't a foolproof method. Anybody who knew enough about telepathy and about the machine – Mystique for example – would be able to mask their feelings sufficiently to escape detection.

Then he noticed something. It wasn't so much an emotion – in fact, it wasn't an emotion at all – it was some kind of anomaly. At first he couldn't pin down what had happened, then his mind began to make sense of it. A mutant's consciousness had suddenly disappeared from his telepathic scan. That was odd. And, as far as he knew, it was also impossible. Even if a mutant had just died, their consciousness would still linger for a few moments before finally drifting away. Minds could not just snap out of existence. Yet one had. Neil was confused, but told himself to worry about it later, and concentrate on completing the scan. He did so, but there were no other anomalies. He returned his focus to the location of the consciousness that had disappeared, and tried to sense it again. There was nothing.

Pulling off the helmet, he breathed a sigh of relief as the strain on his mind was removed. It was never easy using the machine, always painful, and yet he did it because he had to do it. Because threats and anomalies would appear out there – one just had. Although he didn't know what it was, or if it was even worthy of their attention, at least he did know about it. If it turned out to be a threat, they were forewarned. If it turned out to be nothing, then there was no harm in having been cautious.

Leaving the big round room and taking the elevator to the ground floor, he heard footsteps upstairs. Good. The others would be getting up. He could discuss this with them. It might be nothing. It might be a glitch, something wrong with the machine. It might be his paranoia, his pessimism, his realism – whatever you might call it – acting up again, but it was definitely worth mentioning. He wanted to get to the bottom of this. He didn't like anomalies. Threats that he could define, he could handle, but people always feared what they didn't understand. Oculus was no different.