Chapter Thirteen

The Ice Queen

Florence, Italy

The work they did was important. No one else was as capable a time-traveler as she, if there were even any other travelers. The sentinels were exceptional at what they did, leaving only her and her brother as the loyal mutants to the human race while wiping out the rest. They could do this, see this through and finish it. This was everything they'd been trained and prepared for since her very first memory. This was the mission. She knew now what needed to be done. Why was she stalling then?

"What is the point in all of this?"

She examined her brother's expression twisted in distaste for the portrait hanging directly before him on the wall. Bree brought them to this place to be far from events playing out in a different part of the globe. They were waiting, letting things play out on their own. There was reason she avoided traveling from her own present much of the time. There was reason she kept herself in her own timeline and avoided the past.

"It's called art, Brian. People like to look at it, think on it, imagine whole other universes and stories with it."

His distaste grew into disgust and befuddlement. "Toward what purpose?"

"They think it's aesthetic. It tells them their history, possible present, future. It's a way to hope or dream sometimes."

"How do you know that?"

"I've been here before."

"Oh." He glanced her way. "What for?"

She rolled her eyes, unable to help the infantile act. "Wait here, brother. I'll be back before you know it."

"Bre-"

Gone was the museum and Brian. Gone was the heat and general sense of serenity that was a beautiful, cultured city. She appeared inside four tight walls absent of light. There she waited until the one wearing glasses and bearing a mostly awkward disposition left the room with a tall, broad-shouldered and blue-eyed man. Someone who could put her brother to shame with his good physique. They were wearing well-fitted dark suits and ties, near identical to what the mutant she wanted to get alone wore.

When she stepped out of the closet, she cracked a false smile. "Nice suit. Somebody die?"

Charles did not look at her, walking over to the large window of his bedroom to stare outside. It was no surprise she was here. As a mind-reader, he'd probably known the second she popped into his closet space. Why he chose to alert no one to her presence was the query she thought longest on.

"His name was Sean Cassidy."

There was a definite tightness in his throat. He was containing his grief and his anger, holding it in check. She knew about keeping emotions in check. It wasn't every mutant who could destroy the world if they lost control. In her case, the world could tear to pieces if she let it.

"He died in the future anyway," she reasoned. "A voluntary experiment for government minds. It helped produce the machines which target mutants. He died in hiding after it was decided mutation was a plague to be eradicated."

Silence. She moved to stand next to Charles Xavier at the window.

"Where I come from, people dying every day is commonplace."

"And where you come from, you would have all of us live there one day. A place referred to as hell on earth."

"No. I'll have all of you die there."

Charles shifted his feet slightly, indication he was affected by her words. He cleared his throat and his pitch was steady when he spoke.

"A bleak outset. You, come to murder me to enable this future."

"I know I won't let you into my mind, but really, Charles, you can do better." She turned to face him and smiled widely. "Come on, you're an indisputable genius. Read me yourself, without the power."

He didn't say what she expected, but she wasn't disappointed.

"Where do you go when you're not meddling in my affairs?"

The smile widened to teeth. He was expressing interest in her personally. She felt fuzzy and warm at his interest. Charles Xavier, mutant wonder of the world, and her object of interest.

She snagged the hand beside her and slammed her eyes shut. When she opened them, they stood on a rooftop in Florence. Bree released his hand to gesture at the view of the crowded street far below.

"Palazzo Vecchio. One of my favorite buildings in the world."

Brilliant blue eyes regarded her thoughtfully.

"Time-travel must be a terribly disorienting and painful process for someone not used to putting such an unfamiliar strain on their body and mind. I think it's part of what screwed up Shaw's ability to stay completely present and who he once knew himself to be. That and the extra effort you went through to show him what the world would become should he have gotten his way. I'm guessing you don't usually care to protect people."

"No, I don't. Except when I'm traveling with my brother and-" she stopped herself, realizing what she'd done.

Interpersonal relationships were not her forte. She typically communicated with violence because it was the manner in which her world revolved. It was easier than talking, except lately she liked the talking while around a certain mutant. A mutant she began to work her special talent on after her first attempt failed. She broke things, and Charles Xavier would be her masterpiece to ensure their future.

She looked at Charles giving her a committed stare and quickly diverted her gaze to the city. Bree did everything she could not to feel his attention, taking in the sights and sounds surrounding her. She breathed in the air and felt the rays of the sun upon her face and neck. Still it did not prevent his voice from carrying to her.

"You're an anomaly."

"No, no. That's my brother."

"Right. They call you Apocalypse." He spoke as if measuring the sound of her name as he said it. "For someone set on destroying the world, you do seem to enjoy admiring it."

Bree peeled her eyes away from enjoying the calm nature of the area around her. She was feeling a storm brew in her stomach, rising to her chest, and it meant bad things if it wasn't contained. She struggled to stuff any and all feelings deep down as she confronted him with the truth.

"I was born destroying things, Charles. It's what I am. Destruction."

She felt the invisible tendrils of his telepathy poking at her head and so she was surprised when Charles spoke to reveal. She hadn't actually felt him get in yet he managed to extract a particle of information. He was an amazingly powerful telepath.

"You use Shield to hurt me, but you don't want him to kill me." His arms crossed behind his back as he shifted to face her a bit. "May I ask why?"

Apocalypse could tell him this much. It was why she came to him when he was alone.

"You are a fixed point, Charles. You exist and matter in every universe. It's why I sought you out in the first place."

"You tried to turn me into a hateful monster responsible for killing everyone I hold dear."

"I was appointed a task. I admit it was a mistake to try changing you. Clearly, it was not to be. You are you, incredibly strong and good. My apologies for thinking I could turn you hateful and wrong."

"You won't stop trying to change the present to bring about your beloved future though, will you?"

"As I said, I was appointed a task. I have no choice."

He frowned. "There is always a choice."

"Not always."

"Then I suppose this makes us enemies."

Apocalypse smiled at him, amusement on her lips and in her eyes. "Charles, I will succeed in preserving the future. There's little point in making enemies of each other. I won't be around long enough for that. As soon as I course correct the present to lead to my future, I will be gone."

"I won't let that future happen," he declared. "I will figure a way so that future never comes to pass."

She was curious. "What would you do?"

His reply came readily. "Everything I can."

"Afraid I'll stop you if you're more specific with me?" she teased, unworried.

"I'll be the one to show both humans and mutants can and will live in harmony. There will be peace. Acceptance of such a new world will certainly take time, but there will be peace."

She took pity on him. He wanted something so badly and it would never happen. Her world was coming further into the light the longer she stood beside him. He merely couldn't see what she would have to show him. There was no point in hoping. Pieces were already clicking into place.

"Oh, Charles, it's that kind of thinking that lost you the world. Some people just shouldn't live, least of all freely."

He winced, a hand flying to the side of his head. He stroked at the flesh there, apparently easing unseen tension, concern creasing his forehead. She understood he felt the pain of another. From this distance, it had to be someone he recently linked to himself. The blue mutant he experienced childhood with was a notable possibility.

"You want to return," she stated. No sense pretending she couldn't see what was right in front of her.

"Yes. Take me back now, please."

Polite. Apocalypse grasped his hand in hers and instead of immediately returning to the mansion, she paused to look at him.

"Where are they?"

She watched him draw in a sharp breath and felt a twinge in her gut. It was unrecognizable to her, the feeling inside. Bree held onto his voice and after he identified where he needed to go, she brought him there. Watching Charles shake off the peculiar sensation of traveling through time, she observed the green field they were standing in.

"Taking over a small college like this? Hardly sporting. Still, across the ocean in less than a week. That's impressive. Sorry to say, I think your friends fell for a trap and it snapped them right up."

When he stared at the smirk starting to appear on her face, she cleared it. Offering a wave, she departed to do whatever he deemed necessary. She had art to admire and conjecture on.

The art was where she left it, as was her brother, except he was looking more dour than before. His arms were folded on his chest and he was leaning against a support beam. He spotted her once she appeared and glared at two young women. They witnessed a girl appearing out of nowhere, dressed as oddly as the man she arrived by. He maintained his steely glare until they scurried away.

The question came when she made a show of brushing off imaginary dust from her armored outfit. Brian must have determined she was settled well enough in this time to pester.

"What is it with this guy?"

She wasn't going to answer such an inane inquiry, not entirely. She was feeling rather tired right now.

"There's no hot chocolate in our future. There aren't a lot of things in our future."

Claremont, New Hampshire

Charles could feel the pain of an officer's spine breaking when he was flung into a wall. Hurled by a man manipulating the metal on his person to do it. He felt the screams and fear deep in his bones. A red and black blur of a figure swept through a room and ripped metal into legs of security officers who had the misfortune of being on the job. He put himself in the first mind he sensed strongest and peered through a young woman's eyes as she cowered behind a desk in a large lecture hall. She stifled a scream while she watched a blonde woman in a tight outfit walk into the room, stare down two men in black suits, and walk out after they shot each other in the arms clutching their guns.

They attacked non-lethally as he'd asked, but it didn't satisfy him. They were terrorizing instead of acting solely with tact and focus on an objective. Charles zeroed in on the mind of another man that caught his attention. The police were called by a security officer and he was killed by a bullet to the brain. Before his sight had been lost when the mind he was inside died, he'd seen the shooter. Shield. He was nearly at the center of the school building. He was waiting there.

"This was a trap," he murmured.

Shouts above. He sensed Riptide's presence, a touch of Raven's mind informing him of this, and he ran to the building. He shoved through the front doors and located the staircase to the rooftop. Dashing onward, he used his mind to collapse two men in black suits with guns unconscious when they tried to block the stair access. Charles thought inquisitively they might be worth a peek inside if there was time. They were dressed like agents. CIA perhaps? FBI? Why were they here? Valid questions for a later opportunity.

He ran out onto the wide roof to see chaos all about him. Raven and Angel were working together to try and get a handle on the woman who kept appearing and disappearing around them. He remembered her as Blink from when Marcus Smith saw fit to introduce his people to his audience. While the pair of women were working under the illusion the green-eyed woman could teleport or move especially fast, Charles could see her ability. She was disappearing, and not always moving, because what she could do was make herself invisible.

Charles switched his gaze to Riptide, the man faltering in his fight against an enormous wolf with dark fur. His wind dying down temporarily when he was pounced on by the wolf, a man threw his mind into chaos. A man Charles had not seen before. As far as the telepath could tell, his ability seemed to be projecting images into someone's head.

"Move!"

Shaw's voice. Caught off guard, he was still able to identify the sudden attack, her mind conjuring the idea before physically acting it out. He threw himself on the ground. The woman made of ice smiled in his direction and spin kicked Shaw in the chest, felling him. She turned back to him in the next instant and he fought to get inside her mind to control her. She was adept at blocking his psychic attack. Someone had definitely trained her well.

"Hello there. Er... Don't suppose I could convince you we can work this out by discussing matters?"

She tilted her head at him as though wondering what he could mean by his words. He knew she was Russian-born. He was also pretty sure she understood English perfectly. This could be done so fast right now if everybody didn't seem prepared to keep his most abrupt and urgent attacks out, or if they didn't have those vests on. Nobody would be fighting or getting hurt.

Where did they get the vests? How many were there? How were they made? If he could study them maybe he could find a method to get through them with his mind.

Her hand raised above her head, an icicle molding into being in the palm. It was astonishing. She was able to generate an element out of nothing. Charles wondered how well he could avoid the pointed piece. That would hurt. Once again he felt a wave of anger toward Erik for going ahead to the location he found for them without him. Yes, he had them wait a few days before using Cerebro, but this was stupidity at its finest. What was the metal manipulator thinking?

"Kings fall."

Charles spun around to face the recognized voice. Shield had come up the staircase after him sometime in the last minute. His telepathy effectively blocked by many of his enemies of late, he was beginning to feel useless. However, words he could manage.

"Shield, stop this. What is your aim here?"

"What is yours, Xavier? You're wealthy, and arrogant, and both make you think you can go around telling others what to do. This is not the makings of a leader that will better the world."

Those were rather unkind words. He was guilty of telling people what to do sometimes, most of all with Raven. It was because he worried and cared for her. He comprehended the full gravity of the choices people could make and how those choices affected people around them.

"I-I don't mean to tell people what to do. I mean to help them know how to make smart decisions, for themselves."

"Ah, that's right. You were a teacher, a professor. Am I to expect the professor is going to hurt me? Be a threat?"

The fighting regained his attention. Riptide sent several wind funnels toward the wolf while Shaw slammed the mind assailant of a sort to the ground with a burst of stored energy. He was relieved to see Raven seemed to have picked up on Blink's talent because she communicated to Angel and his sister swiped her enemy's legs out from under her. The eyes ceased glowing and regular green eyes blinked in a daze from the ground she was lying on.

Shield drew his attention back. "You're an unimpressive specimen. Though I did read your thesis. You're too clever for your own good. One day... One day someone like you may get lucky and unsettle my efforts. I can't have that. Kings fall. This is where you fall."

"Not today."

Charles looked along with Shield to find Erik standing in the door leading to the roof, Emma at his elbow. The unfriendly mutant moved away from the other two as they came farther onto the roof, long cape ruffling in the wind. The Reapers having adopted red and black appearances as their signature, it seemed to him a tad close to the purple armor, cape, and helmet Erik chose to put on as Magneto.

Then again, the leaders wanted similar things, didn't they? To be feared. Similarities were inevitable when you were going insane. No. He wouldn't think these things of Erik, no matter what he had potential to become.

Shiva's prior bland gaze shifted, part of her mouth stretching upward into a smirk. His attention on her, he saw the single blade of ice atop her palm grow and contort to a bulky rock shape. She swept herself in a circle with practiced ease, icy dust particles sweeping up into the air. Her hands clapped together, the twirl coming to an abrupt halt, ice chunk vibrating erratically. The block of ice shattered into innumerable pieces of sharp, dreadful ice daggers and flew at them.

Shield, Charles, Erik, and Emma were in direct danger. Well, not Shield, who had a body acting as a shield. Charles yelled for Erik and Emma to get down. It allotted him barely time to heed his own warning, dropping to one knee. Cold ice breezed by his hair and he realized he hadn't ducked low enough.

Two pieces were heading straight for his chest.

In the next moment of awareness, he climbed to his feet off the ground. He was six yards away from where he was, the smell of sulfur wafting in the air. Azazel popped into existence again behind the woman of ice. He stabbed her through with his blade. Yanking the sword out of her side, she crumpled, icy blue form paling to blue flesh tone. Her shining eyes of frost dulled in anguish. Naturally, this happened while she was staring at him.

Pain and suffering. Charles made sure to keep his mind closed from hers. He'd seen plenty over the past week. Instead he focused and checked the statuses of the others, seeking Raven foremost.

He was relieved to find her and Angel unhurt, merely tired from the stalled fight in which she'd been engaged. The man he didn't recognize ran for Shiva, and the wolf looked Smith's way before leaping from the roof. Riptide hurried to the edge to see where Fenrir went and turned back without an idea. Why would one of Smith's people flee? Sensing defeat? It didn't seem probable.

Charles thought he heard the sound of helicopter blades and considered investigating, however, he noticed Shaw. He held a vest of padded armor. His gaze swept across the roof to a spot between the door and Shiva. The man he didn't recognize was missing a black vest now. Charles took advantage, diving into the mind for information and then control.

A glimpse in the unguarded mind informed Charles of a few things. Mental focus and physical strength was for his horribly wounded ally, attempting to raise her upright. His name was Jeremy Tallick, a computer programmer and menial life kind of guy until a blonde girl in black armor came to him with the potentiality for something better. Apocalypse was ruining lives, didn't she see? Perhaps that was the point, her goal.

Except her actions to prevent him from changing the future had the unfortunate result of repeatedly putting him in the line of fire. Something she claimed not to want. She might seem to know a lot, but she was still young and did not understand the magnitude of her choices in this present time.

Charles tried to assume control of the distracted mind. As he grasped it, he was cut off. Shield was to blame. He'd moved close to shield his ally with his power knowing he was vulnerable to two telepaths. He continued to be protected until the leader handed over his own vest to the man.

Shield stared at Charles and smiled. His smile was predatory. There didn't have to be any mind reading for him to know Marcus knew he had Charles's presence to thank for the lack of fighting in this moment.

A tense few beats passed. Azazel did try to attack. He didn't teleport and Shield pushed him back, pulling a gun to keep him away. Charles felt like all of a sudden every last one of his senses were blocked. The feeling lasted a couple of heartbeats and he concluded it was him absent of his power. Azazel must have acted out of retaliation for the same conclusion. The Reapers' leader could extend his power outward and he had, affecting everyone on the rooftop.

Erik was not accepting of this change. His anger was visibly intensifying at an alarming rate. Charles would have to have words with him about how blind rage could make someone. Like the urge for revenge that drove him and his top Brotherhood members into this obvious trap. Erik always was determined to handle whatever was thrown at him.

Charles cast a wary eye on Shield closing the distance between them. The gun stayed on Erik, Emma, and Azazel's general vicinity. They moved out of the path of Shiva clutching her gaping wound as she was helped by her fellow mutant ally to leave through the door.

Before leaving, Shiva peered back at Shield, seeking direct eye contact. "Give no mercy."

Shield nodded, expression unreadable. "It will be as you wish."

The two left, door swinging shut behind them. Shield was alone with eight enemies. This was a failing trap.

Assuming the invisible woman actually left the roof, Shield was on his own. Yes, he wiped their powers from them for as long as they were in proximity to him, but Charles imagined this standstill could progress into a physical brawl. No one liked to feel loss or be wounded, and that was what the absence of his telepathy felt like. It was a part of him and to have it no longer there was simply painful. The odds were stacked against Shield despite the gun, so why didn't it feel like they'd won this predicament?

"The king is the endgame," Shield said, keeping his back to the edge of the roof to monitor them. "Taking the king is the whole point of the game. But in any game, sometimes other pieces must be taken out to assure victory against the king. I can't lure you from your knights, the higher tier players? That's fine."

Shield flashed him that predatory smile and Charles was disturbed. A sinking feeling surfaced.

"The pawns often go first."