Weapons of Dark and Light

by Noyoki

Beaten, brainwashed, and broken, the boy once known as Harry Potter is transformed into Weapon IX, a monster of terrible power and inhumanity. Designed as the ultimate foil to the Mutant Menace, Weapon IX's destiny becomes intertwined with that of the X-Men as the darkness in the hearts of men proves that, sometimes, the only way to fight a monster is with a monster. *Slash*

39. Homecoming

Chapter 39 - Homecoming

---

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost

---

The room felt alien. Its soft green walls mocked Scott with their emptiness. Everything that might have reminded him of her had been packed away by Storm's loving hands at his request. Hell, even the room wasn't their old room. He'd asked Storm to set him up somewhere else. To pack everything away.

To… to try and erase the past. Not that he'd told her that. But wasn't that what he was trying to do? Scott couldn't put the pieces of his shattered heart back together. The least he could do was remove the blades waiting to cut him every time he turned around. Bad enough he'd come back to the Institute, so full of Jean he felt like he would run into her every time he turned a corner. He couldn't handle living in the room they'd shared. The bed that held her scent, memories woven into every fiber of cloth.

Now he looked around at the strange room, done in light greens. The full bed with its dove grey comforter, so different from the king-sized bed that had been almost overwhelmed by countless pillows. Only one pillow sat forlornly at the top of the bed, now facing the window instead of the door. His fingertips twitched, and Scott suppressed the temptation to reach up and pull the crystal quartz glasses off and open his eyes wide. Not just to destroy this room that was a betrayal of the woman he loved, but to level the building. To blast out all the windows, tear the walls apart under the fury of his power until the whole thing came crashing down on top of him, burying him beneath the weight of a building he could no longer stand to call home.

Instead he turned to leave only to jerk to a stop. Zen stood in his doorway, watching him with those strange green eyes only a shade or two different from Jean's. He could have been their son in a different life with those eyes. He shook the thought out of his head. "What?" he snapped, unable to keep the bite out of his tone.

"Xavier and the children are arriving. I've searched the mansion and the grounds. It is safe."

That made Scott give a hollow laugh. As if any of them would ever feel safe again. "Do you feel safe here? You were taken by the soldiers," Scott demanded as he folded his arms over his chest, his back ridged not only because Zen surprised him, but because he'd caught him while thinking such things. It felt like his thoughts were painted in bold ink across his face. But Zen said nothing about it.

Instead he gave Scott a slow blink, reminding him of a cat. "I wasn't caught. I allowed myself to be taken so I could protect those who weren't able to escape."

That drove another spike of shame into the rubble of his heart. His fingers dug into his arms, bruising the flesh to keep from reaching up to scratch at the burn mark on his neck. Proof of his many failures.

Not knowing what to say, Scott stomped past Zen, and headed for the front door. He didn't want to greet the children or be forced to look into Xavier's eyes with so many wounds still raw in his mind, but he couldn't stand staying in the room any longer. Not with Zen standing there staring at him with his too green eyes, even if he couldn't make out their color with his own.

Zen stepped out of his path, and then to his dismay, fell in step beside him. Thankfully he didn't attempt to offer any awkward words of advice or try to talk him out of his dark mood. One pep-talk from the assassin was more than enough.

Closing his eyes, Scott pushed the doors open and stepped out into the weak winter sunlight. It was only as the yellow school buses pulled in and parked in a neat row outside the school that he realized he was alone.

---

Zen sat cross-legged on the roof, his eyes fixed on the children streaming out of the buses below. Familiar, yet changed by their experience. Perhaps in the days and weeks to come they'd regain their confidence, perhaps not. But for now, they huddled together, keeping bunched up to stay safe. Instead of rough housing, shouting, or laughing, they moved together in a subdued group up the stairs.

With a low sigh he laid back against the roof and stared up into the brilliant blue sky. No clouds marred the flawless color, and Zen wondered what it would feel like to fly. To be free of the chains of obligation and subservience. His right fist clenched as he remembered the links binding him to this world. Links of dark and light, each pressing against him, holding him down. Binding him to his Wielder.

Letting his hand relax, he closed his eyes. Although the sky was clear, sharp winter wind bit at his exposed skin, and cold radiated up into his back from the roof. He couldn't stay up here, as much as he wanted to. The mansion was secure. Hours spent searching the place from top to bottom, including every inch of the grounds assured the assassin of that. Still he felt the urge to search again now that the children were here.

The urge was irrational and Zen knew it. He'd checked the place over thoroughly, and no threat existed. Still the need to check one more time persisted. This was what Xavier wanted, for him to become more human. He'd spent hours upon hours observing the children, laboring under the weight of their fluctuating emotion. Worse he felt the slow, insidious creep of emotion infecting him the more contact he had with them.

Perhaps Bobby was right, and he'd always felt something for X. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it was only that. Only his odd relationship with his companion weapon. There was a logical bases for such a thing since they'd been developed together. His entire existence twined around the Weapons Plus program, specifically Weapon X. That he could accept.

Then things changed, and Zen realized it wasn't Xavier who changed them. No. It started with Remy. Somehow the prisoner had left a mark on him. Got under his skin. Made him ineffective. He should have simply shot Remy when he'd found him the first time and brought the corpse back afterwards. Instead he'd chosen to fight Remy on even ground using the bo. After the first loss, he should have changed tactics and taken Remy out. But he hadn't. He'd kept up the game of cat and mouse long after he should have ended it.

Why?

He couldn't understand what the Cajun mutant had done to him. How he'd started the transformation Xavier wished to complete.

Then came Xavier, the school, his utter failure, X's defeat. All of it ending in his current predicament.

Xavier didn't want him to perfect a mask so that he could perform infiltration missions. No, he wanted him to become human. To unmake the weapon he was. IX couldn't even begin to understand that idea. But Zen? He frowned up at the burning blue, trying to grasp the depths of it and failing. It was like trying to hold air. He could see the shape of it but couldn't wrap his mind around it.

All he knew was that more people were worming their way under his skin. It wasn't just a mission anymore: Keeping the children safe. No. He saw Kitty in his mind's eye, her fingernails bitten down to the quick, eyes showing too much white as she kept close to him over the last two weeks. The way she jumped at any unexpected noise. Her unaccustomed silence.

Once, such things would have meant less than nothing to him. Now they turned his stomach. Not because they represented his failure to keep her and the rest safe, but because she was distressed.

He shouldn't be bothered by that. By any of their distress. Physically, they were all in one piece. Between him and Logan they'd managed to keep all the children alive. The mission was a success.

So why did it feel like a failure?

He didn't understand. Part of him wanted to go back to a simpler time, were emotion didn't exist and all that mattered were orders.

Small tremors wracked his body as more heat was leached from him by the roof. He remembered the biting cold of the storm he and X struggled through as they were born into the world, hatched from the twisted egg of the labs and tested in blood and fire.

That was easier than this. Easier to tend to X between battles. To wait for orders. To merely exist.

The question plaguing the darkest depths of his mind surfaced again: Did he want more than mere existence?

It was a question he had no answer to.

---

The smile Kitty plastered on her lips trembled at the edges. "Come on Malcom, we can't stay on the bus all day."

Tears made his blue eyes look twice as big, and she felt like an ass even asking him to get off. If she'd been a year younger or hadn't spent weeks defending Zen from the whole school, Kitty would have wanted to hide on the bus too. If she was being strictly honest with herself, she would have acknowledged that her hesitation to get off with the rest was the only reason she'd found Malcom in the first place.

He'd wedged himself as far into the corner of the seat as he could get, and it looked like he wasn't going to come out any time soon. A small part of her, very small, rejoiced at being able to put off going inside for a few more minutes. Or hours.

"I don't wanna! I wanna go home to mama." The words were a little hard to understand around the thumb secured in the boy's mouth. Seeing him like that, his speech regressed by years, made her want to cry. She couldn't even remember the last time he'd sucked his thumb. He was so young. They all were. Too young for what the world demanded of them. Didn't the humans realize they were just children? Why couldn't they leave them alone? Xavier's students weren't hurting anyone!

Anger burned inside her for the first time since the attack. How dare they attack a school? They hadn't done anything to anyone! Hell, the X-Men helped people. Not just mutants, either, but humans too. If not for the X-Men, Magneto would have turned half the world leaders into unstable mutants who would have died horribly. How many times had they risked their lives to save humans? Why in the world didn't the government go after bad mutant groups like The Brotherhood?

Bitterness sat on the back of her tongue like the residue of an unswallowed aspirin, and no matter how hard she tried Kitty couldn't let the hurt go. The unfairness of it all felt like it was crushing her, and she couldn't understand it. Couldn't understand why they'd been targeted even though she knew why intellectually. Just because they were mutants. That was it; their only crime. Their sin was simply being born, but Kitty couldn't swallow that bitter pill. Every time she tried, she choked on it.

Now she was faced with Malcom. One of the sweetest kids she's ever met. She couldn't bring herself to tell him that his mom probably wouldn't want him back even if they called her. Not with every news station trying to top the last over how dangerous the 'mutant problem' really was. It was one of the reasons they'd kept the TV off for the most part at the cabins. None of them could stomach the talking heads babbling about if mutants should even be considered human. After all, if they weren't humans, then they didn't have human rights, and wouldn't that open all sorts of doors when it came to regulation?

Kitty sat down next to the now openly sobbing boy and pulled him into her arms as she so often had in the past. Only this time it wasn't a scraped knee, or someone telling him he couldn't have cookies before dinner. No, he sobbed with the same broken pain that infected her own heart. The unbearable knowledge that by merely existing, they were criminals in the eyes of a large portion of humanity.

After everything went down, and they'd all made it out safe, Kitty hadn't dared call her parents. Worse, they didn't try to call her to make sure she was all right. The school had been all over the news after all, shouldn't they have tried to contact her? But they didn't, and really, that's all she needed to know on the matter. Tears slid soundlessly down her pale cheeks as she cradled the boy. Who cared? Blood didn't make a family, did it? No, it didn't. Kitty's lips thinned into an uncompromising line as she made her choice. She would make her own family here, with the other children, with the X-Men, with Zen.

She was a mutant. If that meant taking a stand against humanity to keep those she loved safe? She would do it.

With gentle hands, she nudged Malcom back and wiped his tears dry. "Hush now little one, hush. I'll be your big sister now, okay? And we'll keep each other safe. Just like you kept Zen safe, and he kept you safe. Right? We will become a true family."

He blinked up at her, his vulnerable blue eyes a match for hers. If not for his flaming hair and freckles, they could have been siblings. "I guess." Malcom gave a wet sniff, and then wiped his nose on the back of his shirt sleeve, leaving a streak of snot across his cheek.

Kitty wrinkled her nose at him but gave a watery laugh. "Come on kiddo, they're waiting for us."

Malcom's bottom lip poked out in a painfully familiar way, making Kitty cringe. "Fine, but I want pancakes. Kay? Choco chip ones! Like mama makes."

The vulnerability still lurked in the back of his eyes, Kitty saw, and she knew it was waiting for the slightest spark to ignite a fresh wave of tears. To keep that from happening, Kitty gave him an exaggerated grin. "Chocolate chip pancakes, huh? I bet we could do that!"

"Yay!" Malcom cheered, his grin breaking over his face like the sun coming out after a long storm. The sight of it melted something cold and hard in Kitty's heart. His simple joy soaked into her, and her fake grin became real under its warmth. They were going to be okay.

---

Half an hour after the children arrived, Zen found himself standing in the doorway to the kitchen and wondering if a tactical retreat might be in his best interest. It looked like someone had detonated a bomb made of flour. The white powder seemed to cover everything, and Kitty was streaked head to toe in the stuff. Malcom sat on one of the stools at the center island. White dusted his hair and formed a long streak down his left cheek. His tongue stuck out slightly as he carefully drew what looked like a group of stick people on the flour coated counter-top in front of him. Some of the figures had extras, wings, a tail.

After finishing one such figure, Malcom sat up straight and glared at the frazzled girl flipping through the pages of a cookbook. "Kitty," he whined, drawing the word out in a way only small children could. "Are they done yet? I'm starving!"

Turning so fast that flour billowed off her hair in a cloud, Kitty stuck her tongue out at the small boy. He giggled and stuck his tongue out back before returning his attention to the counter top.

Then Kitty's eyes landed on him, and Zen's chance to escape evaporated. "Zen! Come help me make pancakes. They aren't working."

For a long minute, Zen considered fleeing. Her eyes flashed fire at him. "Don't you dare," she growled as she stomped over and dragged him bodily into the circle of utter chaos she'd created in the kitchen. How one small girl could generate such a mess in less than an hour defied all logic. There were at least six bowls with filled with white muck, each a different consistency, and none of them looking the slightest bit edible. The stove had no less than four skillets of different sizes, each smeared with the blackened remnants of her failed pancake attempts.

"I don't know how to cook," Zen said, hoping it would get him out of this mess but knowing it wouldn't.

Kitty gave him a waspish look and gave him a small shove towards the counter that held the scattered ingredients and the cook book. "Well neither do I, so it's your turn to give it a try," she grumbled as she went to sit next to Malcom, clearly washing her hands of the whole situation.

With a low sigh, Zen turned his attention to the disaster. Before even trying to cook, he began cleaning up the mess.

"What are you doing?" Kitty whined as he took all the mixing cups, bowls, spoons, and whisks over to the sink.

Keeping his back to her, he filled it with hot water and began washing. "Cleaning up. I'm not going to try and cook in that mess. It's better to start fresh."

She snorted under her breath before pulling out her cellphone and finding a movie for her and Malcom to watch. A Bug's Life began to play, and Zen let the sound fall into the background as his hands moved of their own accord. Washing the dishes with smooth, mechanical precision put his mind back into the hours of training he'd spent with Remy. Once they were clean and dried, he turned his attention to the counters, wiping up the flour and spilled goop.

Twenty minutes later, Zen managed to get the kitchen back into working order. He glanced over the directions briefly before gathering up the ingredients he'd need, while adding a few extras. Without thinking about it, he mentally tripled the recipe.

In an odd way, cooking felt like fighting. His hands did their own work while he planned ahead. Before long he had all the ingredients laid out in an orderly fashion ready to be made into something new. It didn't take him long to dice half a dozen apples and dust them with a mix of cinnamon and sugar, put them in a bowl, and set them beside the griddle he'd plugged in before he started preparing. Next, he set up two more bowls; one with blueberries, and one with chocolate chips.

Along one half of the griddle, he began cooking a neat row of maple glazed bacon. Timing things perfectly, he began dropping the pancake batter. Each one was a perfect 5 inches in diameter. When small bubbles began to form, he sprinkled a liberal amount of chocolate chips onto each and flipped them. Soon he had a stack of ten hot and ready to go along with the first batch of bacon.

Both Kitty and Malcom were staring at him with wide-eyed wonder when he turned around with the two heaping platters of food. "Liar! You said you didn't know how to cook." Kitty pouted as he set them down on the counter in front of them. Instead of answering, he laid plates, silverware, butter, syrup and honey next to the steaming hot food.

Kitty frowned at the huge stack of plates, but her stomach growled, distracting her from further questions.

While Zen turned back to his cooking Kitty dished out three pancakes to Malcom, who was squirming so much with excitement he almost fell of his stool twice, then she gave herself four.

The first bite made her moan out loud with appreciation for the perfect creations. Kitty was a connoisseur of sweet breakfast foods, and she'd had countless pancakes in her young life. For the longest time, her grandmother's chocolate chip pancakes reigned supreme, no other had ever come close to knocking it off the pedestal she'd had them on in her heart.

Zen's toppled it over in a single bite. The pancakes were poetry made edible. Perfect in their fluffy texture, the ratio of pancake to chocolate chip made her eyes slide closed in purest bliss. "I might have to marry you, Zen," she mumbled around a mouthful of heaven.

Then new scents filtered into her brain, and Kitty regretted taking so many of the chocolate chip. The sharp, pleasant aroma of blueberry mingled with the holiday cheer of apple cinnamon, and before she could ask what he was doing, the room began to fill up with students drawn from all corners of the mansion by the alluring scents.

Three more large serving plates joined the first. One stacked high with blueberry pancakes, another with apple cinnamon. He also took time to add more bacon to the diminished tray.

"Oh man, since when did they start teaching Home Ec in assassin school?" Bobby asked around a mouthful of blueberry pancake. He'd snatched one right off the stack, not bothering with a plate, syrup or butter.

Kitty gave him a hard swat. "Hey!"

"Pig."

A delicate sniff of disdain made Kitty's shoulders stiffen. She stared resolutely down at her plate even as she saw Bobby's face go all sparkly and stupid at someone standing behind her.

More than one someone, she knew.

"Well, I suppose Katherine would know best. She does love to roll in the filth."

Kitty could feel the blood filling her cheeks as the memory of one of her less than graceful moments during an outdoor gym class flashed in her mind. She'd ended up covered head to toe in mud, and the little ice princesses behind her never let her forget her more klutzy moments. Moments that always seemed to happen more often when They were around.

As if on cue, the bite of chocolate chip pancake she was about to eat fell of the fork and did an artful, syrupy cartwheel down the front of her shirt to land with a plop in her lap.

Five voices behind her tittered, and if she'd been a real cat, her back would have been arching in silent sputtering fury.

Bobby was still making googly eyes at them and was no help whatsoever. She snatched a napkin off the table and did her best to clean up the mess, only managing to smear a wide streak of chocolate over her pink shirt.

"Now that Bobby is free, you two should get together. Two pigs in a sty. You'd be the perfect couple."

Giving up on all pretense of pretending they weren't there, Kitty half turned on her stool to glare at them. Arranged behind her in a neat wedge looking unreal in its perfection, stood five blond girls. Their Icelandic beauty made Kitty cringe and feel too short, with hair too dark, and far too many freckles dusting her cheeks. Their hair was such a perfect ash blond she wondered if it came out of a bottle. From their husky blue eyes, to their perfect size zero waists, Kitty hated every inch of them.

As one, they gave her a cool smirk. "Look Esme-"

The one in the lead glared at her. "I'm Phoebe."

Kitty rolled her eyes. "If you want people to get your names right, then start wearing name tags or stand in alphabetical order." She raked her eyes over them and wrinkled her nose. "You're all wearing the same thing, like always. Why even have different names when you're just 'one'?" The last word she put in air quotes.

"Poor little Kitty," they looked from her to Bobby and back, who was still staring at them with drool practically dripping from his tongue. "Always the friend, never the girlfriend. Though who could blame them when you act like one of the boys?"

Narrowing her eyes, Kitty focused as she developed the mental image with exquisite attention to detail.

Five pretty blondes, all nude, all exact replicas of each other. They are in a large bed, in the middle of their collective ice queen beauty, Beast lounges. He is also gloriously naked, one of the girls is laying on his chest, running her fingers delicately through his thick blue fur. Phoebe is between his legs, her blond head bobbing up and down while Beast moans, his hips jerking in time with her. Off to one side, another of the blonds is picking blue fur out of her teeth.

As one, the five flinched back, disgust wrinkling their faces. "You little pervert!" the shrieked in unison.

Kitty arched an eyebrow at them. "Oh? I didn't say anything. Maybe you shouldn't look through keyholes. You might not like what you find on the other side."

Glaring at her, they turned their backs and stormed out of the room.

With a smug smile, Kitty polished off her pancakes and reached for a second helping. Blueberry this time.

---

Done with both the cooking and the dishes, Zen had no choice but to turn and face the crowd that had taken over the kitchen like a plague of locus. They were still unnaturally silent, at least for them, but some of the darkness seemed to have left.

As he walked through the group, more than one thanked him, making discomfort flare inside his head. It was strange, both his training, and his experience with them made Zen dislike being the center of attention. Yet some part of him seemed to crave their regard, felt pleased that they were pleased. The unusual feeling itched under his skin, and Zen fought to ignore the weird sensations.

Zen forced a smile onto his lips, muttered a few stiff thank yous, and escaped as quickly as possible.

---

Sex Scene starts here!

---

He'd made it out of the kitchen and halfway to his room before a strong arm looped around his waist. Zen's hand automatically went for a knife, even though he knew he was unarmed. Teeth clamped down on his shoulder, and Zen's eyes slid shut, his body going lax in the powerful hold.

Without saying a word, Zen was tossed over X's strong shoulder and carried away from the students' wing. He considered vanishing, but heat flared low in his belly, and every step fanned the flames, making his breath catch in his throat. They weren't in danger this time. He had no orders he needed to fulfill.

"X," he gasped, his voice a heated sigh. The arm around him tightened, a warning not to protest. But protesting was the furthest thing from Zen's mind as he slid his hands along the smooth skin of X's lower back, making the feral give a low, pleased growl.

Another small, surprised sound escaped Zen as X tossed him onto his bed. His mouth went dry as he turned and watched X pull his shirt off, the white cloth coming up slowly, revealing X's hard stomach inch by savory inch. Zen shifted back on the bed, his groin suddenly so hard it made him want to cry out with need. He reached down, pressing his palm against the bulge only to have X leap on top of him with a snarl.

X's hand gripped his wrist, giving it a sharp tug as he captured Zen's other hand with his, pulling both up above Zen's head. A low moan escaped Zen as he gave his wrists a sharp twist, feeling the strength of X's grip and knowing the larger male could break his bones if he squeezed just a little harder. With a low growl of his own, Zen arched his body upward, pressing his feverish still clothed cock up into X.

A throaty snarl was his reward, and X let his wrists go. Sharp nails dragged down the smooth skin of Zen's arms. Goosebumps flared over his flesh and his pulse seemed to triple when X's hands reached his shirt and didn't stop.

Cloth parted with a low, obscene purr, exposing Zen's entire upper body to X's hungry mouth. Teeth and tongue danced over the hard plains of Zen's flesh. His nails cut sharp lines down X's shoulders, lines that healed instantly as teeth sank into the tender skin around his nipple. Hard, hard enough to draw blood and yet X's tongue stroked over the hard nub with exquisite gentleness, creating a fierce contrast of sensations so potent it made Zen want to scream.

The earthy scent of X filled Zen's lungs as his fingers tangled in the other man's thick hair. Deep woods, rich, powerful, masculine, a scent that triggered a thousand memories. All that was missing was the gun metal tang of fresh blood. The tiny wounds inflicted by X's hungry teeth weren't enough to mimic the rivers of blood they once spilled together.

Any thoughts of blood and killing were ripped from Zen's mind as X jerked his pants off, leaving him totally exposed to the feral's hungry mouth. Without the threat of imminent death hanging over them, X took the time to explore every silvery inch of Zen.

Rough callused fingers stroked over the smooth skin of Zen's ribs, following the artful curve down to the wing of one hip, deliberately ignoring his painfully hard cock. X's lips and sharp teeth followed the trail his burning fingertips laid, until Zen was a writhing mess on the bed.

Every nerve felt alive in a way he hadn't thought possible. When he fought, when he killed, it was always in cold blood. But this was different. It felt like his blood was boiling, and every breath came out as a low whine of need. Zen felt all control slip from his fingertips until he was little more than a being of pure nerve endings eagerly drinking in all the sensations X pulled from his over sensitive flesh.

When X's fingers sank into his heated passage, Zen arched into the invading touch. They were slick with something other than blood, but the writhing assassin was too far gone to try and figure out what or how. All that mattered were the thrusting fingers, the burn of his body stretching open, and the way his heart thundered in his chest in eager anticipation for more.

Three fingers sank deep into his willing flesh when Zen had enough. X could have stopped him, could have kept control, instead he rolled when Zen bit down hard on his neck and shoved him onto his back.

The sight of the feral beneath him as he slowly sank down onto the massive cock almost undid Zen. Large hands gripped his hips, holding him steady as inch after burning inch sank into his willing flesh. Three fingers hadn't been enough, but the sharp jolts of agony only stoked the flames of passion and he tossed his head back, exposing his bite marred throat as he took all of X into him.

Bodies flush together, they froze each almost overwhelmed. Then X growled and thrust his hips upward. Zen flashed a sharp-edged smile as he began to move. Jerky at first, but then in long smooth strokes as he arched upward before impaling himself again and again until X couldn't take another second.

With a desperate snarl, he rolled them, and took back control. His hips slammed into Zen driving the air from his lungs as he was ravished by the beast. Teeth sank deep into his throat as they both spun up higher and higher, a pair of hawks in the wind, spiraling down towards the earth, bodies locked together in a writhing mass of ecstasy.

X fell to the side, rolling Zen with him and tucking the tiny male against his chest as they both came down from the high.

Zen gave a low sigh of pleasure as he melted into X's powerful arms, all the stress of the move back to the mansion, the broken children, his growing emotions, all if it wiped away in the storm of their passion. Now he was blissfully empty, his heart and mind a calm deep pool. Closing his eyes, Zen let sleep pull him under.

---

End Sex Scene

---

The visible space between the four people at the back of the C train and the rest of the crowd was unusual. Montana's feet ached, and the thought of standing for the entire subway ride home made her lower back want to scream in protest after putting in over eight hours cleaning toilets and emptying countless mini trash cans, one for each cubicle on twelve different floors.

But she couldn't bring herself to take one of the two open seats separating the normal people from Them. One of them had deep maroon skin, and something was wrong with its hair. Deeper maroon, almost black, the strands were too thick. And even though she never actually saw it head on, when Montana looked at it from the corner of her eye, she could swear they were moving. And its large golden eyes were far too big for its face. Overall, it looked like some sort of mix between an alien and a prune. Across from that one, sat another who was at least clearly female. Quite female. Her proportions were oddly stretched, elongated in a way that looked painful. A young male sat next to her and looked perfectly normal, but the mere fact that he was sitting with them proved he wasn't. And the last was another woman who looked like a marble statue come to life.

Montana forced her eyes back down to the widescreen of her phone. Her thumb flicked as she scrolled down her twitter feed, the little blurbs of text and photos flying past even though she wasn't taking any of it in. Instead, her eyes flicked up again, to the blank space, and the knowledge that she would have taken one of those seats a month ago. Before she'd almost died falling down the stairs when the pain, more pain than she'd ever felt in her life, struck. Somehow, through dumb luck or divine intervention, she hadn't broken her neck in the tumble. Or any bones for that matter. Her back and left side looked like a particularly ugly sunset as the collection of bruises went from violet black, to greenish yellow. The symphony of aches from the tumble both made her want to take the seat and kept her standing.

No one in the government confirmed the attack was mutant in origin, but everyone knew it was. The news was full of speculation. Normally she wouldn't give the news a second glance, it was all spin after all, but she'd felt her mind being crushed. It was a trauma she shared with every other human on the planet. That unbearable knowledge that something had reached out from beyond her normal existence, and almost snuffed her out.

Not just her. Everyone.

That truth kept the invisible line between the four mutants, a group they'd been sharing the train with for years without complaint or incident, real and solid. There might as well have been a wall erected between the two groups, and no matter how exhausted any of the normal people felt, none of them would take that final step and sit down.

Vibrations traveled up Montana's spine from the floor of the train as it rattled on making every ache in her body grumble. The lights gave a tired flicker, the way they often did. It was an old train, the tracks were old, it was the C train.

Six stops down, five more to go, then another four blocks to her apartment. Then, finally, she could rest.

The train made another stop before heading into the dark maw of the tunnel. Her eyes caught on a tweet about the latest allegations against a supreme court nominee, and she lost herself in the outrage as the train trudged on towards the end of the line at Euclid Avenue.

Again, the lights flickered. Off. On.

Off.

The darkness engulfed the train as it slowed to a squealing halt. It didn't jerk to a stop, instead it seemed to lose momentum long before it would have reached Euclid Avenue.

Low mutters of exasperation flitted like mosquitoes in the dark, but no one panicked. Even so soon after the last mutant attack, they weren't afraid. Of course they weren't. This was New York, the C train, Brooklyn.

After the train settled into perfect stillness, the passengers followed suit, each cocking their head slightly to catch the sort of sounds that would tell them why they'd stopped.

No sound met their ears.

As one, they moaned in quiet exasperation, there were sighs, rustling as people put away newspapers or books and got comfortable to wait it out. None of them, not one on the train or in this car, hadn't been in this position before. Stopped, stalled, delayed, and trapped in the dark.

The darkness was total, a living thing pressing against their useless eyes.

Then the first spill of bluish light exploded like a mini firework as someone pulled out their cell phone and began scrolling. More followed, so many that the whole car was soon filled with the cold mechanical light of tiny screens.

Laughter spattered in the gloom as someone made a snide comment about the MTA, and the mayor's name was taken in vain.

Flicking Twitter away, Montana pulled up the e-reader app on her phone and sank comfortably into the technological thriller Code Zero by Jonathan Maberry. Now that she couldn't see the mutants, it was easier to ignore them, to pretend like things were back to normal, and there was nothing to fear from people who had powers so far beyond their understanding that they could wipe out the world with a mere thought. She lost herself in the story, undisturbed, unaware.

Unsuspecting.

The door at the back of the train rattled open with a crash. Everyone's heads snapped up and stared in dumb disbelief at the sight before them.

Montana's phone slid from her numb fingers as she gaped at the… the thing framed in the doorway. As one, the people on the train began pressing backwards, suddenly not giving two shits about the carefully maintained space between them and the mutants at the other end of the train car.

Framed in the doorway stood a monster. It grinned at them with sharp white teeth framed in slate gray skin. None of them were looking at his, definitely his, nude form. All eyes were locked on the creature's coral-like head. It looked like the top of his skull had exploded in a mushroom cloud of brain matter, electric blue and pulsing, totally alien and horrifying.

He reached out with long, spindly fingers, and grabbed an elderly man by the head. A horrified screech escaped him, and at first, Montana thought it was just terror. But then she could make out words.

"OhhHHH God! God! It's like WorrRRmms! H-His voice is eating-eating-eating me! Eating my thoughts, eating!"

Then he fell silent, and so did the rest of the crowd, frozen in mind numbing terror as the mutant let the man go. He didn't fall, didn't scream, he just stood there. Then he turned, and they cried out in denial when they saw his face, empty of life, eyes glowing in the same frightening way as the brain.

Before they could react, the man attacked. He grabbed the head of a young girl; her shrill scream jolted the crowd into motion. They tried to flee, tried to escape, tried.

But there was nowhere to go, and one by one, their minds fell, consumed by the bacterial consciousness eating them alive.

---

Cold shadows clawed restlessly over the blank white ceiling, their shapes twisting and writhing like spirits of the damned in torment. Scott's lips curled at down at the thought, and he closed his eyes, blocking out the unwelcome sight and the way his night goggles tinted the whole scene in unpleasant red, like the rest of his world. Clenching his eyes shut, he tried as hard as he could to remember the color blue.

He tried to remember that day at the lake, the one where he and Alex decided to swim all the way across, and the dog followed faithfully along behind. How the poor pup almost drowned when they were half way back, and Alex somehow managed to get the big black mutt balanced on his back so he wouldn't go under. How Scott envied his older brother's strength. But most of all he remembered the blazing green line of pine trees, the only border between the pristine robin's egg blue of the sky and the deeper, richer blue of the lake.

Bit by careful bit, Scott built up the memory in his mind, of a time before mutation, before Xavier's school. Before… Jean and loss, death, betrayal, and red, red, red.

Cold water swirled around limbs that were thin from being young and running, playing, climbing trees, always on the move, always chasing after Alex. He remembered how his skin was crisscrossed with scrapes, patches of road rash, and dusted with freckles that blended in seamlessly with his summer tan, only coming back when winter leached the rich brown from his skin. So much smaller and less muscular than the ones he hugged himself with now, alone, in a cold bed that smelled of indifferent laundry detergent.

The odor of wet dog mixed with the crisp clean scent of the lake water. So amazingly clear they could see the bottom all the way across, even though it was far deeper than they could ever reach, even if they tried. Because they were normal, gloriously normal, none of them could breathe underwater or talk with the fish or open their eyes without destroying everything in front of them.

One perfect day. Full of brilliant, heartrendingly clear colors, and his brother's teasing laughter, and the dog barking, and all that cold, clear water. A day long before he knew about pain. Loss. Fear. Death.

Back when he'd been a whole person, and not a mutant walking around with half his heart torn out yet still breathing, still alive. He was always the one who survived, the one left behind.

No matter how carefully he built up the image, it was always sullied by red. The blues never quite right. And the harder he tried to remember, the more it slipped through his fingertips, like trying to hold the lake in his arms. Impossible.

Scott's breath hitched in his chest, and it took a bitter act of will to smooth it out as the memory fragmented, dissolving like cotton candy in water. There, a brief taste of sweetness, then gone.

The broken pieces of his heart felt betrayed at the memories he tried to relive, not the ones of Jean, but of the times before her, before all of it. Better to have loved and lost… had obviously been written by a man who hadn't lost their love the way he had, not to rejection, but to death. The one entity he couldn't steal her back from.

With an inarticulate snarl, he threw back the blankets and climbed out of bed. Sleep was impossible, and he refused to lay there trying to relive the past for another second.

His hands shook slightly with repressed emotion as he jerked on a pair of black jeans, a forest green turtleneck sweater, and his black leather riding jacket before he stalked out of the bedroom, leaving his normal glasses and helmet behind.

Staying in the mansion wasn't an option. Not tonight. Even paroling the grounds wouldn't be enough. Not with every nerve ending screaming for Jean, for the past he hated to remember but couldn't let go. The need to escape blazed in his mind as he headed for the garage.

---

In another part of the mansion, Zen's eyes snapped open. Logan pulled him closer, burying his face in the back of Zen's neck as he muttered something incomprehensible in his sleep. Closing his eyes, Zen ignored his bed partner in favor of the tiny sliver of power he sensed rapidly departing from the building.

After Xavier gave him the task of looking after Scott, Zen made it a point to inject a tiny seed of power into the other man. The operation had been painless, the lightest touch of fingertips to an unsuspecting shoulder, and it was done. Scott walked away with a bit of power that didn't belong to him, and Zen had a perfect tracking device. Zen closed his eyes and waited for the tiny blip of power to come to a stop.

Hot breath ghosted over the back of his neck, making Zen's cock give a hard pulse of desire. He arched backwards and gave the slightest hint of a smile as he ground himself against Logan's steely length. Logan's low moan, almost a whine, cut the darkness between them as he began to rut against the smooth curve of Zen's backside. For half a heartbeat, Zen wondered if he could get Logan to take it all the way, but then he let his body fall still. Logan rutted against him a few more times before being drawn back into the depths of sleep.

Zen gave it another five minutes before he slithered out from under the large arm holding him to Logan's chest. In the back of his mind, he felt the tiny dot come to a stop. It took only a few minutes for the assassin to dress, careful to keep his look casual in case Scott ended up somewhere public. A pair of black jeans, and a dove gray sweater.

Closing his eyes, Zen focused on the seed of power, carefully feeling his way down the tether and sending out a pulse of power when he got to the end. It was something he'd been working on after the Stryker incident. Without thinking about the impossibility of the act, he'd been able to shadow walk to Xavier's side without having been in the room. After things began to settle, he'd started experimenting with the new twist on his shadow walking ability using both Xavier and Logan as touch stones since they were the two he had the strongest connection to.

It was difficult for him to explain what he saw, sensed, when he did it. Almost a picture, but emptier, like moving through a familiar room in the dark. Where he knew where every piece of furniture was, could almost sense their bulk in the dark, but couldn't see it. It allowed him to pick where he appeared when shadow walking, instead of popping up in the nearest shadow to his target.

A slow breath slid in and out of his chest as he took in Scott's surroundings and made the deliberate choice not to bring any weapons. Closing his eyes, Zen vanished, leaving only the scent of sex, flour and sugar behind for Logan to wake up to.

---

Scott stared up at the flashing neon lights that proclaimed in glaring red and blue: The Cloud 9 Bar and Grill. It was far enough out of Xavier's neighborhood to still be open, and appeared to cater to people who were looking to get drunk in peace as well as rowdy customers looking for a good time with their drunken counterparts. It was, in a word, trashy. Somewhere so far out of his experience that there were no memories, good or bad, connected to it.

Dismounting from the motorcycle, Scott hesitated for only a second before he pushed his way through the smoked glass door. He almost froze on the threshold as the sound of music, drunk laughter, and a few angry shouts from around the pool table crashed into him with almost physical force. As a man who always prided himself on control, he rarely if ever drank, and never in public. He'd always found bars distasteful at best, and downright reckless at worse. Nothing good could come from a bunch of people getting together, and consuming beverages designed to ruin their ability to make sound decisions.

All around him a miasma of bar odors swirled, so thick he could almost see it. The sharp stink of alcohol in its countless flavors mixed uneasily with an equal number of perfumes. He could almost taste the clinging smoke that hung in the air even though customers had to go outside to smoke. Woven into it all lingered the heavy scent of frying oil, so thick he didn't have to look at a menu to know that the only type of food the bar offered was of the fried variety.

Still, his feet took him unerringly to the bar, as if he'd been doing it for years. As he walked, he noticed heads turning his way, eyes narrowed as they took him in, and he felt like he had a giant red M branded on his face. His fingers twitched, and without realizing it, his hand started to go up to the dial of his visor before he caught the move and let it fall back to his side. He dipped his head slightly, as if that could hide the damning visor across his eyes and slid onto one of the well-worn bar stools.

Things had always been tense between the humans and mutants, but they'd gotten exponentially worse after Xavier's psychic wave brought the entire species to their knees. That complicated human-mutant relations significantly even though mutants were attacked first. The humans liked to forget that part, and those who remembered it didn't care because in the end it was mutant powers that almost killed everyone. It hardly mattered that mutants were also attacked. In the end, the attack pushed most of the people who were on the fence about the mutant problem over the other side and drove those who were already against mutants to greater fury.

"What'll it be?"

The smoke-roughened voice of the bartender, a tired looking woman who could have been anywhere from 21 to 51, broke his brooding thoughts and forced him to get down to what he'd come here for. "A double shot of Tequila, please," he said, naming the first hard liquor to come to mind. Not that he'd ever had anything stronger than a beer or a wine cooler in the past, but he wasn't interested in beer tonight. The woman's lips curled into a smile, or perhaps a sneer, at his polite tone, but she didn't keep him waiting.

No, he was here for one reason, and one reason only: to attempt to obliterate his memories under a wave of pure alcohol. The plan was horrible, and he knew it, but he wasn't about to let that stop him from his self-appointed mission. She plonked a surprisingly large glass of clear liquid in front of him before heading off to serve the next customer waving a hand in her direction.

Scott gave the glass an unfriendly look and had to fight the urge to simply get up and walk away. Politeness, more than anything else, kept him in his seat. He hadn't paid the bill and walking out without paying never crossed his mind. Instead he lifted the glass to his nose and gave a small sniff, expecting a sharp alcoholic burn to scorch his nostrils. There was a scent to it, but nowhere near as harsh as he expected.

Closing his eyes, Scott mentally counted down from three before he knocked the shot back. It took way more swallows than he expected, and he almost choked half way through but managed to get it all down. Heat burned his cheeks at how ridiculous he must appear. It looked so easy in the movies. Tiny glass, knock it back in one swallow, and slam it down on the bar. He probably looked like a child trying to mimic the adults.

The alcohol settled in his stomach, a warm ember, small, waiting for more to burst into the flames of forgetfulness. Ignoring the unpleasant aftertaste that furred his tongue, Scott held up his hand for another.

---

In the deepest shadows of the alley beside the bar, a figure appeared out of nowhere. A sleek gray cat nosing around the dumpster laid her ears back and hissed at the sudden intrusion onto her territory. Zen gave the cat a dismissive look before stepping past the irritated creature.

He spotted Scott's bike parked in the lot in front of the bar. Without hesitation he stepped past it and into the bar. Unlike Scott he didn't stand in the door; instead he scanned his surroundings as he moved, instantly taking in the bar, the pool table area, the dart game in session, and the fact that most of the people were both male and human. There were women, but they were greatly outnumbered by their male counterparts.

Without drawing undue attention to himself, Zen slid into a small side table along the back wall, one that gave him a clear view of the bar and his query without exposing him to equal scrutiny.

It took a waitress nearly fifteen minutes to realize he was there and saunter over. "Oh Sugar, you're far too young to be in a place like this. Run along back to your Mama," she waved him away with a long-nailed hand, each of the nails glittered in the weak light of the bar, a sharp lacquered red. Her curly black hair had been teased into a frothing mass that seemed to float around her head, and the amount of makeup caked on her face would make any street walker proud. Zen didn't get up.

Instead he locked eyes with her, and let his mask slip the slightest bit. Her working smile slipped half a notch in wattage as she got a good look at the yawning emptiness that gaped behind his eyes, and the cold metallic pang of fear soured her mouth. A slight tremble in her fingertips made her almost drop the pen and pad she fought out of her apron. "What," she cleared her throat, "What can I get you? If you want an alcoholic beverage, I'll need to see some ID." She almost didn't add the last line, but he looked far too young to drink, and she wasn't going to get into trouble for serving a minor.

"A Shirley Temple, please."

That made the waitress's lips twitch, but the smile died on her face when his face remained blank. It made her skin crawl. Without a word, she turned on her heel and went to get his order up, secretly hoping he'd be gone by the time she got back. Something about him gave her the creeps.

"Hey, Lynn, can you drop this off at table 43?" She asked, handing off the drink to the new girl, a small slip of a girl with wide blue eyes, and arrow straight blond hair, who'd just started working there two weeks ago and was still getting used to the rowdy nature of their clientele.

"Only if you trade me 24," she shot back with a little smirk. Jenna peaked over at the table and groaned. Jeff was a lush, 20 years past his use buy date, who still thought he was the shit. Worse, he had Roman Hands and didn't tip.

Still... She looked back over at the shaded little table along the wall, at the silhouette of the boy who hadn't moved so much as a finger length in the time she'd been gone. Another wave of unease tweaked her. "Deal."

Lynn beamed at her and snatched up the drink. When she came back, she scowled at Lynn. "I can't believe you gave me a damned vampire."

Jenna blinked at her in astonishment. "Vampire?"

"Yeah. That kid," she put the word in air quotes, "doesn't look a day over 14. But he gives off this ancient vibe, you know? Isn't that why you gave him to me?"

Heat burned Jenna's cheeks, but couldn't be seen beneath the thick layer of base. "Well, he did give me the creeps. He's got Hannibal Lecter eyes."

That tugged a startled laugh from Lynn. "Yeah, too bad we don't sell fava beans." Jenna arched an eyebrow at her, surprised she got the reference. Kids these days had no appreciation for the classics. "What?" Lynn laughed, her eyes sparkling as she gave Jenna a nudge toward her old table. "Someone's looking for another refill. I'd say he has four more shots before we have to scrape him out of that chair and toss him out on his ear."

With a gusty sigh, Jenna went to tend to the drunk.

---

Scott glared blurrily down at the neat row of shot glasses. Seven in all. Or maybe eight. He wasn't sure exactly since the bastards kept blurring together. Instead of smothering the pain of Jean's loss, the alcohol made it grow.

This was nothing like the books, the movies, all the promises he'd been given through a thousand different mediums that drinking would make him forget. It would turn his brain off and let him rest for a few hours. Hell, he'd even been willing to accept the payment of a raging hangover for a few hours of peace, yet he wasn't even granted that small reprieve.

In his mind, an endless cascade of memories assaulted him. Red hair draped over his skin, laughing green eyes burned in his heart. Countless conversations echoed in the hall of memory, a cacophony he couldn't drown out, no matter how much he drank. Scott. His name. Moaned out in passion, growled in irritation, whispered in confidence. Over and over, in all the different tones she'd ever spoken it.

The tequila had the opposite effect than what he wanted. Instead of blunting the edges of his memory, or better yet obliterating them, it put a magnifying glass on them, bringing them into such sharp focus they cut him to ribbons.

Holding up an arm that wobbled more than a little, Scott hissed under his breath, "get out of my head."

"Don't you think you've had enough?"

It took longer than Scott would have liked for the rough voice to break past the storm of words spinning through his head. Instead of his inner world dimming, the real world was fading in and out.

Finally, the words broke through. His lips curled up in a sloppy imitation of Logan's scowl. "I'll be done when I say I'm done," he slurred.

"All right Hot Shot, but it's time to square your bill before you pass out."

"Fine," Scott snapped.

With a grin that would make a shark proud. She put a small slip of paper in front of him. Scott blinked dumbly down at it for almost a minute before he could get the little black digits to stay still long enough to read. "Are you fucking kidding me?" He barked, hardly able to believe what he was seeing, and not even noticing the expletive flying from his lips.

The predatory smirk flashed again. "$8.79 for a double shot darling, plus tax."

Gritting his teeth to keep the rage under control, Scott fished his wallet out of his pants, an operation that took over five minutes to accomplish and earned him more than one eye roll from the demented woman who was robbing him.

Finally, free of his jeans, Scott jerked his debit card out and handed it over. No one ever told him that the punishment for drinking wasn't just in the hangover. The movies never showed how damned much one bad night could run.

When he got the slip back, along with his final drink, he spent another ten minutes glaring at the piece of paper and trying to get his alcohol-soaked brain to function. He managed to work out exactly twenty percent for the tip, even though it physically hurt to write down a $21.27 dollar tip on a $106.39 bar tab, he did it. How in the world were alcoholics able to drink like this night after night without going broke in a week?

He shoved the little slip back at the woman and almost fell off the bar stool from the abrupt action. "Careful, wouldn't want to spill your last drink." She put enough stress on the word last that even his fuzzy brain heard it. He glared at her, but the look wasn't effective since she couldn't see his eyes. With a low chuckle, she took the slip and moved off down the bar to serve the real drinkers, leaving Scott to contemplate his final drink and feel the sharp burn of being a total idiot without any of the satisfaction that was supposed to come from being drunk.

"I can't even do this right."

With a low grunt of disgust at himself, Scott tossed back the shot. In an instant, the world spun wildly on its axis, the abrupt, shocking movement dislodged him from his precarious perch on his stool. He yelped as the world did a violent dance around him. The sound of glass breaking rang in his ears, and the fall seemed to go on forever.

Things might have gone better if someone hadn't been walking behind him in that moment. Instead of landing flat on his back and getting laughed at, Scott slammed back first into a man easily twice his size. A cascade of yellow liquid poured over him as he fell, and more glass broke in a cacophony of furious shouts as the entire tray of beer drenched him.

Before he could begin to orient himself and make it back to his feet, a beefy fist grabbed the back of his shirt and jerked him to his feet. "Hey asshole, that round was on me and now it's on you!" he shouted, giving Scott a hard shake.

The motion made everything inside Scott churn in a way that threatened to add to the mess on the floor if he didn't do something. Somewhere in his alcohol drenched brain, he remembered that this jerk was a human. That was the only thing saving the man from a blast to the face he wouldn't wake up from the next day. He went with the next best thing and drove his fist into the man's unprotected guts.

Not expecting the sloshed man to throw a punch, let alone one as hard as that, the larger man dropped him with a hoarse gagging sound. Free, Scott stumbled away and nearly hit the floor again when his back foot slid in the spilled beer. Cursing, he grabbed onto the bar to stay upright and fought his rolling guts to keep from expelling all the shots he'd had.

"What the hell is all this about?" For the second time in as many minutes, someone grabbed Scott.

Before Scott could twist away, the man made a grab at his visor. "Take that stupid thing off and look me in the f-" His finger barely tapped the edge of the dial, but it was enough.

A sliver of red light escaped, punching a hole the size of a dime in the ceiling. A startled shout escaped the man, and Scott slammed back to the floor, unable to regain his balance in his state. Silence crashed over the bar like a physical force. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared.

"Get that thing out of my bar. I won't have one of those monsters here." All the early friendliness and harsh teasing vanished from the bartender's smoky voice. Now it held a harsh edge that wouldn't be refused.

Scott's jaw clenched on the things he wanted to say. He might be drunk, but he wasn't a complete fool, and he could feel every hostile eye burning into him. Somehow, he managed to get to his feet, but he found he couldn't step away from the bar without stumbling.

For a long second, the bar patrons stood around him, like a gang of mongooses around a deadly cobra. "Well? What are you waiting for? Get him outta here!"

The furious shout broke their temporary paralysis. They moved as one, all the men who'd been playing pool joined the jeering group as they crashed into the exposed mutant. "Get his arms!" The shout came a second before Scott's muddled mind grasped the seriousness of the situation, and his options were torn away as two of the largest men grabbed him, one on each side.

"Let me go," he snarled, trying to twist away. Their grip clamped down on his arms, and the ground kept shifting in unexpected ways, making it impossible for him to properly attack. Struggling did nothing as they lifted him half off his feet and dragged him bodily out of the establishment.

None of them noticed the small shadow stand in the wake of the shouting men. Zen slid a five-dollar bill beneath the still full glass before slipping his hands in his pockets and followed the gang outside. Without a word, he leaned back against the wall of the bar and watched the scene unfold.

They dragged Scott out into the parking lot and formed a loose ring around him. The two holding his arms kicked his legs out from under him, making him crash down onto the pavement hard enough to skin both palms. "Listen here, mutie, you touch that thing around your head and we'll break both your arms for you, got it?" The words held the nasty edge of hate, but even drunk Scott heard something far more dangerous: the undercurrent of fear.

Scott spat at the one who spoke but kept his hands on the ground. There were too many of them, and with the way his head was spinning, he knew he'd be lucky to hit one before they were on him. With the way his luck was going, he'd most likely end up taking out an innocent pedestrian. Still, he wasn't about to go down easy. Let the bastards work for it, he thought as a savage grin curled his lips.

Before they knew what he was doing, Scott shifted his balance onto the balls of his feet and pushed off in a move that had taken Logan to the ground a time or two. He put all the force of his anger at his own foolishness into the move, exploding into motion.

A startled squawk of alarm escaped the man directly in front of him an instant before his shoulder collided with the human's gut, driving all the air out of him and sending them both crashing to the ground. Scott didn't relent as they fell, he rabbit-punched the man in his ribs as they fell, and heard at least one let go with a satisfying crack.

The man beneath him became the focal point of all his churning emotions as he got the upper hand and drove his fist into the screaming face, once, twice, then the others were on him, dragging him back like a pack of hungry dogs on an unwary fox. Fists rained down on him from all directions, and it took every ounce of strength he possessed to keep his head down so they wouldn't knock his visor of and get blasted back to the ice age.

A booted foot crashed into his gut and this time Scott's body rebelled, expelling the witches' brew of partially digested tequila and bile all over the ground and half on one of his attackers. That earned him a kick to the chest that he thought stopped his heart for a second. At least that's what it felt like. He didn't have a chance to hit the ground for the umpteenth time that night. Instead, his arms were once more grabbed in the bastards punishing grip.

"Hold him, I'm going to fuck this mutie up bad, hold him tight," a man who made Logan look like the height of civilized snarled.

Something wild and self-destructive flared up in him, spurred on by the agony inflaming his flesh and the burn in his throat. In a crazy way he felt alive. No thoughts of the past filled him, and the only pain he felt was purely physical.

Scott's lips twisted into a parody of a smile. "Who are you calling a mutie? Have you looked in the mirror lately? You look like your mom fucked a bear."

The sound of a switch blade snapping open rang in the space between them. "Wait, Mark I don't think-"

"Shut up and hold him or you're next."

Scott tried to jerk back out of reach as Mark approached, but the others held him fast. Panic began thrumming in his veins, and his abdominal muscles tightened painfully in anticipation of the blade. All he could do was watch as the man's arm jerked back only to position forward in a cruel jab. Moonlight flickered along the edge of the blade, and Scott clenched his eyes shut not wanting to watch the killing blow fall as he choked on a hysterical laugh.

Of all the ways to die, he never imagined it would be in a drunken brawl with a bunch of humans outside a bar.

A hollow thonk sound jerked Scott's eyes open as confusion washed through him. As much as he hated Logan and Zen, he'd practiced with them enough in the danger room to know what the sound of a blade sinking into flesh sounded like, and it wasn't that. That, and he wasn't in any more pain than he had been.

"What the fuck?" the guy holding his left arm shouted as Mark went pinwheeling backwards and fell. He sat there for half a heartbeat but even tinged red from his visor, Scott could see the deep blankness in the man's eyes and the large lump already forming in the middle of his forehead. Without a word, he fell over backwards, his head hitting the cement with another wet thump. Scott almost felt sorry for the headache he'd be feeling when he finally woke up.

Heat bloomed in Scott's cheeks when he saw Zen step away from the wall another rock bouncing lightly in the palm of his hand. The sight of the tiny assassin made him wish the buffoon would have been a bit faster in gutting him. "Get out of here, kid," one of the brawlers shouted.

"No, I think this has gone far enough for one night. Let him go and return to your game." The bland tone and blank features of the youth made the group of men hesitate. He wasn't showing any of the normal signs of a teenager who'd gotten in over his head. No fear, no gusty bravado, nothing. The utter blankness was eerie enough that they almost listened.

Almost.

The two holding Scott let him go, and he fell hard, unable to catch himself after the beating. The lingering effects of the alcohol weren't helping matters, and all he wanted to do was close his eyes and pass out. But he couldn't, of course he couldn't. Not with Zen here among a bunch of humans out for blood. Drawing breath into his tortured lungs, Scott managed a hoarse shout. "Don't kill them, Zen. That's an order."

Consciousness slipped through his fingers like grains of sand through an hourglass. It didn't pull him under fast enough to blot out the first of the screams.

---

Zen's eyes were never still even though the rest of him didn't move a hair's breadth. The patrons, the exits, the servers, and Scott were all touched on. Scott more than the rest. Watching someone with power over him do something so foolish made Zen's fingertips itch for a blade. He couldn't comprehend why anyone would drink to begin with, but to come to a place like this and consume enough alcohol to induce blood poisoning? It was madness. A slow suicide.

Or a fast one, he mused when the ballet of the drunk began. Lacking all his normal battle skill, Scott couldn't even stand upright without holding on to something. A hit of a frown touched Zen's lips, and he finally understood why Xavier wanted someone to keep track of the wayward teacher. What he couldn't comprehend was why. Scott, of all the adults, was one of the more grounded people at Xavier's institute. This behavior flew in the face of everything he'd previously observed in the man.

His eyes narrowed in irritation as a blast of Scott's power slipped his control. That was unfortunate, Zen mused, as he watched every head in the bar turn to stare. In an instant the cruel edged amusement of the other customers over a drunk about to have a bad night shifted to ice edged fear. In less time than it took for Zen to draw a full breath the fear sparked into fury.

The word mutie was hissed like a curse, and he saw more than one of them cross themselves. He could almost taste the hatred buzzing in the air when they all realized exactly what was in their midst. Zen took another slow breath as he started calculating the odds, sizing up the different humans, and judging the amount of space he would need to take them out without doing serious harm. This wouldn't be the first incident of human violent against mutants in the months after the wave, and Zen could see by the ugly looks twisting their faces that what would have been a beating was rapidly turning into a lynch mob.

If he hadn't shadowed Scott into the bar, he would have become the latest in a growing trend of violence against mutants. Then a harsh female voice cut through the growing tension, demanding they take it outside. Something eased in Zen's chest as he watched the procession drag Scott out. Seven men followed the two dragging his teacher through the door, but the rest of the bar held back.

Even drunk and high on their own righteous anger, the rest of the humans remained behind. The mutant who dared come drink with them wasn't harmless. Not one of the freaks with weird skin, or feathers for hair. No, he was one of the ones that sparked such hate in them. One of the ones who could cut them down with his eyes if he wanted to, as the new hole in the roof attested to. The difference was simple: poking a stray dog with a stick or poking a rattlesnake with a stick. A rattle snake who could shoot lasers out of his eyes. Still their faces twisted as they shouted their hate after the group, urging them on, demanding the satisfaction of blood.

Zen slipped out after the group, as unnoticed now as he was when he entered, and glad of it. Taking down a few drunks in the parking lot would be far easier than trying to extract Scott from a mob in the bar. While his orders were to protect his fellow mutant, he knew Xavier would not be pleased if he did undue harm to the civilians, no matter how much of a threat they posed. A low snort escaped him at his wielder's unwillingness to acknowledge the danger they were all in. Even before the wave, things were beginning to unravel. Zen was surprised the humans weren't already rounding up all known mutants for public safety. Then again, he knew better than most the hands that were moving in the background of the government and knew such an order could come down at any moment.

Once out in the parking lot, Zen hesitated for a heartbeat before settling back against the wall to wait. While he'd been ordered to protect the other man, he couldn't save him from himself. No, better to allow the lesson to be pounded into Scott's flesh for a few minutes first. Let him understand the weight of his poor choices before rescuing him. After all, pain was the greatest teacher.

Zen was mildly impressed, even drunk almost to the point of blacking out, Scott managed to deliver a few good shots before he was overwhelmed. When he heard the metallic snap of a switchblade opening, he bent over and picked up one of the river rocks lining the ground along either side of the door. He plucked out two perfectly round rocks from the bed of stones, used cigarette butts, and broken glass. The rock felt comfortable in his hand, giving him a small pang of nostalgia over hunting in the woods around Xavier's when he'd been starved.

Timing the throw down to the second, he let the rock fly. In the time it took for the drunks to realize they were in danger, Zen could have killed them all. Scott's slurred words, barely understandable, weren't needed to stay his hand. Xavier never gave him orders not to kill civilians and hadn't considered modifying them after reworking them the last time. But he didn't need the order to keep his retaliation to a bare minimum. Unlike the professor, the students, and the rest of the staff, Zen recognized the level of danger they were all in.

The world as it was stood at a precipice, waiting for the slightest push to plunge into civil war. Once Zen would have been the one to deliver that last push. It's what his prior master wanted-to have an excuse to do what they'd wanted to do from the appearance of the first mutant. Eradicate them. Destroy the overarching threat to humanity, and to obliterate the damning knowledge that they were not God's perfect creations. Not the pinnacle of evolution. That they were no better than the badger or the wombat. Just another unremarkable link in the ever-growing chain of evolution.

Mutants represented a truth that so many humans refused to acknowledge. That their time as the rulers of this world was rapidly drawing.

"I'll teach you to throw rocks!" the drunk nearest to him shouted as he lunged. Zen let the rock fall from his hand. He could have shadow-walked to where Scott lay, but he didn't. Not because it would go better if they didn't realize he was also a mutant, but because he wanted a challenge, even if these humans were barely that.

Still, his lips twitched with sharp satisfaction as he shifted his weight effortlessly to the side, letting the fist past half a centimeter from his right ear. He hip checked the man as he passed, sending him crashing to the ground in an ungainly heap of drunk limbs and cursing. Then the others were on him, incensed by the interruption to their fun and worse, the sight of one of their own being so casually pushed aside.

Zen focused on dodging. Like the wind, he slipped between feet and fists, and used only the lightest of touches to wrists and forearms to direct the blows into their comrades. Even with the self-imposed limitations, the ground was soon littered with cursing men with broken noses, and in dire need of ice bags for their bruised balls. Yet none would need a trip to the hospital.

With a low sigh of irritation at not even working up a sweat during the altercation, Zen stepped over a greasy biker cradling his balls and glaring up at him balefully. "Dirty... cheat," he wheezed.

Ignoring the fallen would-be fighters, Zen knelt at Scott's side. A second's focus proved his teacher wasn't badly harmed. A few broken ribs, some deep tissue bruises, a bone bruise or two. His left kidney was damaged, but not badly enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. All in all, a little banged up but hardly broken. Zen sent a small jolt of power into the unconscious mutant.

Scott's whole body jolted as if he'd been hit with a cattle prod, but it had the desired effect. "Wha-?" He croaked, arms flailing out in a haphazard attempt at protecting himself.

"Mr. Summers," Zen's dead voice managed to convey a level of contempt that cut through the alcohol fuzzing Scott's brain, making him go still. "It's time to go. They won't be down long."

"M'ready," he grumbled, holding a hand up for Zen to zap them away.

He didn't. Instead he grabbed the offered arm and jerked the larger man to his feet with enough force that if Scott had been sober it would have make his head spin. As it was, he almost fell flat on his face again before the iron like hand clamped down on his arm and pulled him towards the motorcycle.

"Nuh huh, no driving, can't. Drunk," Scott slurred, leaning heavily against Zen as they crossed the battlefield of fallen drunks.

Zen sighed and reached into Scott's front pocket. "What the hell're you doin'?"

Finding the keys, Zen shoved Scott onto the back of the bike and mounted in front of him. "I'm driving, all you have to do is hold on and not overbalance us too badly."

He could feel Scott shaking his head since his whole body wobbled with the motion. "Nope. No. Too young, no license."

Two of the drunks were back on their feet, and one had a bottle in hand. "Hold on." It was the only warning he gave before cranking the engine and gunning it out of the parking lot. The bottle flew past his head, shattering on the asphalt as a last farewell before Zen pealed out, making the tires scream as he wove around the shards of hungry glass, reflecting blood stained red from the neon bar sign.

Shouts echoed after them, the words lost, but the potent mix of rage and fear flavored the air like the stench of a decomposing body. This incident wouldn't be the match that lit the fire, but Zen felt the heat in his bones, and knew that today, or tomorrow, or a week from now, someone would strike a fatal blow. At this point it didn't matter if it was a human who died or a mutant. The one who died wouldn't matter anymore than the carelessly tossed cigarette butt thrown out a window.

The wildfire it sparked, however...

---

The third time Scott almost toppled the bike mid-turn, Zen considered abandoning the contraption all together and shadow walking them the rest of the way. It was only the attachment Zen knew Logan had for the machine that kept him from leaving it on the side of the road for anyone to take.

As the trees flew past Zen paid careful attention to how hard Scott's grip was. The last thing he needed was for his charge to pass out and tumble off the back. Even his powers couldn't do anything to fix a shattered skull since neither of them were wearing helmets.

Night pressed in around them, folds of crushed black velvet eating the light of the headlamp, forcing Zen to go five under the posted speed limit, which got under his skin. He wanted to fly down the road, feel the wind whipping around him in a mini hurricane until it felt like it might rip him off the bike and fling him up into the sky.

After what felt like half the night, they were finally approaching the main gates. A flash of white caught the assassin's eye and he let the bike roll to a stop over a hundred yards away. The second they were no longer moving Scott half-staggered, half-fell off the side of the bike, crawled a few feet away, and started throwing up.

With Scott occupied, Zen approached the stranger who sat in a slumped position against the gate. He'd left the keys in the bike, so the headlight captured the stranger in a perfect circle of silvered light. The man was dressed head to toe in a white, including a strange helmet with a cloth mask over the lower half of his face.

The only skin showing was around the man's eyes, exposing them to Zen's scrutiny. They were a frosty blue so pale they almost blended into the white of the rest of his outfit. A leather overcoat sans sleeves gave him some protection from the bite of gravel. The man wore a form-fitting white suit of synthetic fiber, its snow like purity marred by the crimson bloom of bullet wounds.

Wielder? Zen's thought flitted away on the wind, an arrow sharp request edging into demand as he watched the odd man watching him. Neither moved, not yet. Zen's body was held poised for action, every inch ready to attack or retreat as needed as he focused his senses to their furthest extent.

Whoever the stranger was, he shouldn't be here. Someone should have noticed him before now and dealt with him. That no one had didn't bode well.

Zen? What's wrong?

The utter lack of inflection in Zen's previous thought clued Xavier into the seriousness of the situation. Still keeping his distance, Zen sent a mental image of the man in white bleeding all over their driveway. As he watched, the stranger slumped a little more, looking utterly pathetic in the sharp light.

"Sanctuary," the word hung in the space between them as the man shifted, applying more pressure to his left thigh, where blood spilled through his fingertips, staining the white material of his outfit.

I can't read his thoughts. When I focus on him, all I see is an endless field of white roses.

Xavier's thoughts wove themselves in to Zen's mind, and his eyes sharpened as he stared down at their uninvited guest.

"He is requesting sanctuary and is injured," he said, deliberately speaking out loud.

Ice blue eyes gave a slow blink before he reached up and tapped the side of his head with a gloved hand. "Greeting Professor Xavier, I'm sure you're wondering how I got here without your knowledge and why you only see white roses when you look into my mind." He gave the strange headgear another teasing tap. "Thought proofed ceramic panels. I've heard of you and your... facility through the grapevine, and call on you for sanctuary," he said as he held out a hand dripping with his own blood. His deep voice was heavy with exhaustion, his French accent so flawless it couldn't be real. "I'm asking you to harbor the most notorious mutant criminal in Europe. Fantomex-pleased to make your acquaintance, Professor."

Zen ignored the proffered hand, his own fingers itched for a blade to finish off whatever someone else started. Everything about the stranger rubbed him the wrong way, and he knew instinctively that he would bring trouble down on their heads.

"Sir?" As much as he wanted to end the man and burn his corpse in the woods, he knew the decision wasn't his to make. And he knew which way his soft-hearted wielder would jump.

Tend to his wounds and then bring him to my office.

Biting back a sigh, and never looking away from the menace he would be healing and bringing into the school full of non-combatants he was tasked with keeping safe, Zen slowly approached. Without a word of confirmation on what the Professor said, Zen reached out and tugged a white gloved hand away from the blood-soaked thigh.

Fantomex slapped his hand away. "Just take me inside. All I need is a little light, some needle and thread, and I'll be good as new."

Zen snorted, a noise he'd picked up from Bobby whenever John said something the other boy thought was stupid. "Be still. If you want sanctuary, you will have it. But I'm not going to carry you in, or let you bleed all over the carpet. If you want sanctuary, then healing is the price of admission."

Something in the way Zen said it made Fantomex attempt to inch away, but too late. Zen's hands clamped over the wound, drawing a sharp yip from the man that turned into a low hiss of agony as power spilled into him.

Zen focused on the life-threatening wounds, eight bullet wounds. The lack of screaming told Zen more about Fantomex, as well as the shots. All serious, but still... staged somehow. While he didn't think the man shot himself, Zen's power tasted the man, his battle shaped form hidden beneath the white cloth, the iron strong hands clamping around his wrist, the way he knew not to pull away while Zen healed him. All of it spoke to Zen.

Fantomex was more than a wayward thief.

Three minutes later Zen sat back on his heels and stared at Fantomex. The thief poked a finger into one of the bullet holes still marring the cloth and felt the odd texture of the flesh beneath. "Huh, now can you get the bloodstains out of my clothes?"

Zen gave him a dead stare and the man held up his gloved hands, still streaked red. "Just asking, just-"

"What is going on here?" Scott's voice only slurred a little around the edges.

"The Professor would like to meet with our guest in his office now that he isn't bleeding out in front of our gate. Put the motorcycle in the garage and go lay down." The words held the uncompromising slap of a command, a tone the X-Man hadn't heard the small assassin use with any of the staff before.

Bristling at the tone, Scott started to speak, but Zen cut him off before he could begin. He didn't even bother turning around to look at the older man. "You are drunk and of no use in this situation. Go sleep it off. I'm sure the Professor will want to have a word with you once you've sobered up."

"Ouch!" Fantomex's chortled, one gloved hand coming up to cover his hidden mouth in mock exclamation.

Scott's entire left arm jerked before he could stop it, the urge to blast the bastard straight through the gate almost overwhelming him. "Go." The single dismissive word hit him like a slap to the face and he let his head drop, shame overwhelming the petulant anger. Whatever goals he might have had when he set out that night were utterly unfulfilled, and worse, he was in no shape to help if Fantomex proved to be an enemy.

Turning away from the pair, Scott did as he was told.

"He's well-trained, isn't he." Fantomex snarked. They both saw the muscles bunch in Scott's back at the barb, but the X-Man didn't turn again. Instead he mounted the bike, and only weaving slightly, drove it past the pair as the gate opened, leaving them to make their way up the winding driveway alone.

Zen waved a hand at Fantomex, refusing to let the stranger have his back. For a long second, their eyes locked. Then the moment broke and Fantomex laughed before he turned and sauntered up the driveway as if he owned the place.

---

"Honesty Dumbledore, I don't see why I should have to-"

Dumbledore placed an age-spotted hand on the flighty woman's lower back and gave her a gentle push to get her moving down the hallway again. It was a dance the two performed on the first of every month when he appeared at her trap door, inviting her to come down from her tower and join them for a spot of breakfast. "As I've told you before, Sybill my dear, you need to come down from your loft now and again. If nothing else, it will help keep your Inner Eye clear."

Sybill made a low humming sound under her breath. "Yes, I do see what you mean. Using my Inner Eye so often in class does cause a great deal of strain."

Running his fingers through his still woefully short beard, Dumbledore smiled at the small victory as he led the way to the teachers table. She sat to his left and peered suspiciously at each of the breakfast options laid out before them. Dumbledore speared a thick slice of ham before drizzling a generous helping of honey over the pink meat.

The professor's eating habits made Sybill's nose wrinkle hard enough that her glasses slipped, and she had to nudge them back into place. She finally settled on a piece of white toast and a small scoop of mixed fruit.

Classes had been in session long enough that none of the students noticed the additional body occupying space at the teachers table. The rest of the adults at the table kept their opinions to themselves but made no move to engage with the woman who went out of her way to avoid them. After all, her dire predictions of violent death were hardly limited to the student body. No one wanted to hear, in excruciating detail, how they would be mauled by a manticore while patrolling the grounds for wayward students. At least not while eating breakfast.

It didn't matter that none of the Divination Professor's predictions ever came true, she still spouted them endlessly. As if she felt she had to over compensate for the fact that they all knew she was a fraud.

Sybill finished off her cup of tea and more than one of the other professors inched away from her, knowing what came next.

The bright eyes magnified by her large glasses widened dramatically as she stared down into the bottom of the cup. With a small, dismayed squeak, she looked up and locked eyes with Severus. The Potion's Master bit back on the near irresistible urge to whip out his wand and hex the cup into a million pieces, not in the mood for her foolishness this morning. Not with double potions with Slytherin and Gryffindor in less than twenty minutes.

"I am so sorry," Sybill gasped, and he ground his teeth at the spark of fake tears glistening in her eyes. "I... "

Severus stood up. "I have a class to prepare for," he growled, but then he froze. The tea cup, almost as if it heard his earlier wish, fell from her suddenly loose fingers. It shattered on the table in front of her.

"Sybill?" Dumbledore reached out to touch her suddenly ridged shoulder. Her staring, empty eyes, and slack mouth made the old man's heart leap into high gear, and he wished they were somewhere more private. At the sound of the cup breaking, the whole room seemed to fall silent, all eyes turning towards them just as the woman began to speak in an alien, booming voice, totally different from her normal dreamy whispers.

"THE SKY WILL SPLIT, AND DROWN THE SUN,

THE AGE OF MIRACLES HAS BEGUN.

GOD AND BEASTS WILL FILL THE SKIES,

AS SIX THEY'LL FALL, AS ONE WILL RISE.

IF TO THEIR EGOS LISTEN WELL,

ALL SHALL FALL TO FREEZING HEL.

BUT IF AS ONE THE HEROES STAND,

A NEW DAY SHALL DAWN ACROSS THE LAND.

BUT WAIT, HOLD FAST, A DANGER BLOOMS;

A FROZEN LAKE, AND DARKENED ROOMS.

THE CHILD LOST, THE HERO BORN.

THE SHADOW-WALKER, THE WEAPON TORN.

IF HIS SOUL IS LOST, WE ALL SHALL FALL.

THE PHOENIX COMES, AND CONQUERS ALL."

Sybill's head abruptly dropped to her chest, and a soft snorting sound escaped her. Then, all at once, her head jerked up. A startled hiss escaped her as a piece of the broken cup bit into her palm.

Holding her hand, she looked down and gasped, her eyes wide as she stared at the cut, neatly severing her life line. "Oh dear. I'm so sorry Dumbledore, but I don't think I'll be able to go on our morning walk today. No, this is... Oh dear."

Without a word, Dumbledore plucked a violently purple handkerchief out of his sleeve and neatly bound the trembling woman's hand. As it was nearly thirteen years ago, she appeared unaware of her words. All her attention was on her palm as tears fell down her cheeks at all the dark omens such a cut would inspire.

Whispers began to gust through the room, and Dumbledore wished again that this had been more private as he glanced over at the Slytherin table. Quills were flying fast over parchment, and he knew this wouldn't be the sort of Prophecy that could be swept under the rug. Too many listening ears and loose tongues.

Even with the complications the new Prophecy promised, most of which he knew wouldn't become clear until it was far too late to do anything about it, one line ran through the old man's mind again and again. It filled his tired heart with a tiny spark of hope.

The child lost, the hero born.

Dumbledore smiled.