"Well," said Kassandra, as she and Kurt were on their way out to Mass the next morning, "I'm glad we got some kind of reprieve between Alex and Lorna's non-wedding and…"

"Und was, Liebling?"

Kassandra had suddenly slipped out of time. "Get Northstar, Bobby, and Hank or at the very least Annie, as well as the police and fire departments over to St. Anne's. MACH SCHNELL!" She then disappeared.

And arrived a second too late. Three windows were already shot out, and Molotov cocktails thrown through them. She could not prevent that now. But Father Dinh, Deacon Rezendez, the lector, the altar servers, and the choir director, along with a few others, had already filtered in to prepare for Mass. At this precise moment, with time stopped, Kassandra could be everywhere she was needed.

Gott steh mir bei! Kassandra may not have been subject to time, but while she could drag everyone out before they could take one more whiff of smoke, she still had to breathe.

Northstar flew to the front lawn of St. Anne's. Nightcrawler teleported in the merest fraction of a second later, bringing along Iceman and Annie. Smoke billowed out from the doors and shattered windows of the church. Annie immediately took charge of the confused huddle that gathered in front of the church. Nothing worse than a couple first-degree burns and a little smoke inhalation. "Is everyone out?"

"Ja! Now, Iceman! Do your thing!" barked an unrecognizably hoarse voice. Kurt turned to see Zeitgeist, unusually haggard, face smudged with soot and tears, setting an altar server down on the grass, and a look in her bloodshot eyes of which he thought only Wolverine was capable. But just before he could recognize with certainty her expression, she disappeared.

"Northstar, try to follow her, and notify me when you've caught up."

The fastest man of all time never needed to catch up with anyone. But Jean-Paul knew this was no time to address petty slights.

One piece of shattered glass, a drop of spilled, burning fuel, that was all Kassandra needed to see, to access the timelines of the ones who threw those makeshift incendiaries. And she would get those Schweinehunde. She could even enjoy making them suffer for what they've done, even the very way the idea sickened her. They were about a mile and half away already. Fine. Solche Feiglinge! Of course they'd try to speed away as quickly as their car would take them, like that would save them. Still, catching up to them instantaneously, running that mile and a half past one car after another, past time itself, should have been easier. Yet she was tired and nauseous and her lungs still burned without mercy, verdammt. When would that healing factor kick in?

And there they were, in a white El Camino. A strange choice of vehicle for people who hate mutants. Sabre now in hand, she resumed a slow flow of time.

"Yeah, we got those-"

THUNK! SSSSSCCCCCHHHHRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNG! THUD!

The car suddenly stopped running. Driver and passengers, whiplashed out of congratulating each other for their stupidity, noticed that the hood and pretty much everything underneath it had been pretty well shredded. And a sword-wielding wraith stood atop the wreckage.

"-those disgraces to humanity?" said the wraith. "I could … take out a few… right here."

SNICK- CLICK.

"Nightcrawler, she's got them," Northstar said into his X-link. "A mile and half due west. Get the gendarmerie-"

BAMF! Nightcrawler teleported on the scene.

"Kurt!" Kassandra gasped. She really did not want him there right now.

A hail of bullets shattered the windshield. Time stopped.