Chapter 12

.

500 years later

.

Bishop tried to make it to the rendezvous without being noticed. The sentinels barely noticed someone looking in an alley for scraps of food, too many here to bother. Those who ate this garbage, they were the ones lucky enough to eat today. And ofcourse Bishop made certain to say "Hail Apocalypse." He said it softly, just loud enough for the sentinels to hear. Like just about everyone else Bishop hated Apocalypse, but feared his wrath if he didn't say this. In theory the current war was about how best to worship him, yet all were completely loyal to Apocalypse. Apocalypse never made any effort to stop these wars, he encouraged it. Just another way to weed out the weak. Maybe it was insane to really believe all of this could be avoided, that if one death could be avoided, then people would all just stop fighting and get along. Still, any world had to better than this one. Bishop thought back to what Wolverine had once told him, the way he described the old world made it sound like paradise. Maybe people back then didn't really appreciate how good they had it. If Bishop made it back to the world before, if he could just live out his days in peace, he would make certain to appreciate it. Even if he wound up in prison, it couldn't be as bad as the concentration camps in this world. It was ofcourse a risk, trusting Forge like this. No way to know if Forge was an informant to the secret police, or any of the people who'd worked on this so called time machine. Truth was, Bishop might have been more suspicious if Forge claimed he'd never been an informant. Just about everyone in this society had been at one time or another, even Bishop. Now Bishop was the one thing a tyrant like Apocalypse could not tolerate, someone trying to overthrow him. But in the end Bishop made it to Forge's safehouse and made the jump back five hundred years. Wolverine had told him things about those last days before he died, but his mind was so shatterred by the end, Bishop wasn't certain how accurate it was. Still, it would have to do.

.

January 19th

.

So this was the world before. This bar, it was just like Wolverine had described it. Wolverine hadn't been able to remember where he was every night of his life, but he held on to his memory of the night before the assasination. He always said how he and Rogue hustled some foolish pervert. Rogue had pretended to be drunk, that some guy could hustle and/or take advantage of, and she beat this fool in a game of billiards. Bishop saw some employee throw away food that someone had left on their plate. It seemed like such a waste to Bishop, but people in this world were worried about germs, Bishop had been happy to just eat garbage. He walked into the bar, and there was Wolverine, he actually looked younger than Bishop remembered. Perhaps he had just seen less horrors at this point in his life. Wolverine was drinking a beer and watching a young woman who seemed to be drunk, and asking an older man to teach her how to play pool.

.

Bishop: Hello Wolverine.

Wolverine: Do I know you?

Bishop: We fought together in a war.

Wolverine: You're going to have to be a lot more specific.

Bishop: It's a war that won't be fought for over 400 years. I'm from the future. I need your help.

Wolverine: I take it this is important if you came back 400 years.

Bishop: More like 500 years, give or take a decade or so.

Wolverine: Prove it.

Bishop: That guy Rogue is hustling, when he loses he'll get angry, try to grab her. She'll get his memories temporarily. One memory is from when he was 15, his father slapped him for getting a tattoo of a confederate flag. He got the tattoo removed so it's no longer visible, but the memory will soon be shared by Rogue.

.

Wolverine watched as Bishop's prediction came true. This man did indeed get angry when he realized he'd been hustled. He tried to grab Rogue and soon lost consciousness. Rogue then fled with Wolverine and their new friend Bishop.

.

Rogue: Who's the new guy?

Wolverine: Possibly a war buddy. When he touched you did you get his memories?

Rogue: A few?

Wolverine: Was one of them being slapped by his parent for getting a tattoo?

Rogue: How'd you know that?

Wolverine: What was the tattoo?

Rogue: A confederate flag.

Wolverine: Than I'm fairly certain that Bishop here is from the future. So what is you need our help with?

Bishop: You know what happens tomorrow?

Wolverine: That jackass Kelly is sworn in as president.

Bishop: No he isn't. He'll be assasinated by Magneto and his followers.

Rogue: Good. Couldn't happen to a more deserving person.

Bishop: Maybe he deserves it, but then vice-president Creed takes over, and he was even more anti-mutant that Kelly. He uses Kelly's assasination as a pretext to pass the Mutant Control Act, and the creation on the sentinels. Within the next few years war breaks out between mutants and normal humans. The result nearly destroys society. Then Galactus comes.

Wolverine: Who's Galactus?

Bishop: A being or entity so powerful he feeds off entire planets. He doesn't care who survives, if anyone, he just feeds and leaves. Maybe Earth could have mounted a defense, except we nearly destroyed ourselves in the great war, and people didn't trust each other enough to work together anyway.

Wolverine: When does Galactus come?

Bishop: I don't know. It's forbidden to delve into the past too much, and even your mind was too shattered to remember exactly how long. Could be ten years from now, could be 100. After Galactus was finished with us, Apocalypse came unto the scene. He is believed to be the first mutant, and would likely be the last mutant, or so he claims. He and his group, Hydra, they offered the few survivors order, survival. And people were desperate enough to believe him. Having just had the planet nearly wiped out, his talk of survival of the fittest, how only the strong are worthy of life, seemed to make sense, at least for awhile. He enslaved us all, made us fight wars simply for the best way to worship him. Babies found to be in any way defective are killed outright. A very few live in absolute wealth, most struggle just to find garbage to eat. The wealthy are eventually overthrown, only to be replaced by a slightly different ruling class. There is no justice, no law, very little order. Love is viewed as a weakness, and no weakness is tolerated. Suppossedly it's all about making us stronger against some other threat, that's the theory anyway. Slavery, genocide, pestilence, every horror you can imagine and then some is the norm. This world is Hell, I'm hoping that if we can stop the assasination of Kelly, this future can be changed.

Wolverine: You sure about that? People say that the first world war started with the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. But he was just a minor member of the royal family, not a very competant one. Take it from me, tensions had been building between the allied and central powers for years. If the archduke had lived, they would have found some other excuse to fight.

Bishop: You might be right. Maybe if Kelly becomes president, maybe he finds some pretext to start the sentinel program. Or maybe he's at least rational enough to work with his enemies to prepare for Galactus. I'm hoping that you're willing to help me stop this.

Wolverine: Why not, I got nothing better to do.

Rogue: Great, we're going to risk our freedom and our lives to save the worst enemy of mutants.

Wolverine: I'm not asking you to come.

Rogue: The hell you're not. You never left me behind, I won't leave you behind. So if you're going into battle, I'm going into battle.

Wolverine: Fine, we're all in. So Bishop, tell us what you know about the actual assasination.