Author's note: ALL ART COMMISSION OFFERS FOR THIS STORY WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY DECLINED
...
Historical Points
July 5th, 1951-Viktur Vonn Duum is born in Latveria
November 1st, 1961-Reed Richards is born in Central City Hospital, California, to Evelyn and Nathaniel Richards. Tony Stark produces his first primitive suits of powered armor using high-capacity Graphene Batteries that recharge with solar energy for the U.S. Army, which accepts them to create what later becomes known as the U.S. War Machine Power Suit Battalions. The Russians counter with their own Power Suit Units known as Crimson Dynamos.
September 1st, 1963-The U.S. Government assembles the first iteration of the Avengers (Captain America, Loki, Hawkeye, Wasp, Ant Man, Red Queen, The Incredible Hulk, Ex Nihila) to conduct operations against HYDRA and HYDRA-funded insurgent groups in Northern Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and South America.
July 7th, 1968-Katherine Summers uses her wealth and connections to pay her husband, Christopher Summers, a surprise visit at an Air Base in Vietnam. Scott Summers is believed to have been conceived during this encounter.
February 22, 1969-The PAVN (People's Army of Vietnam) and The VC (Viet Cong) initiate the 1969 Tet Offensive. Christopher Summers is injured during a failed attack on the Air Base itself, resulting in the loss of an eye and a hand. He receives a medical discharge and returns to the United States.
March 7th, 1969-Scott Summers is born in Bayville Hospital, Westchester County, New York, to Katherine Anne Summers. He is the youngest of four children. Tony Stark is kidnapped in Saigon by Viet Cong agents.
July 16, 1969-Apollo 11 is launched. Tony Stark escapes his Viet Cong Captors by constructing a more heavily armed and armored version of his earlier War Machine Power Suits under their noses, becoming The Iron Man. Yelena Bolova defects from the U.S.S.R. by stealing the Soviet Super Soldier Formula as well as their secret method for creating Carbonadium, handing it over to the American Government, where she proves the formula is real by having injected herself with it days prior. Bolova is rewarded by being permitted to join S.H.I.E.L.D. with her actions having severely compromised Soviet political and economic power in a way that they never fully recover from, being assigned the codename Black Widow and the alias Natasha Romanoff.
July 20 1969-Neil Armstrong and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr, land on the Moon.
November 21st, 1973-At Age 12, Reed Richards becomes the youngest NASA consultant in history. His participation is a closely guarded secret. He forms the 'Future Foundation Initiative' to study the effects of Cosmic Rays. Iron Man and Black Widow join The Avengers.
March 6th, 1977-The Red Queen vanishes from sight while on a mission with Captain America.
March 7th, 1977-The Summers Plane Flight.
October 8th, 1979-Reed Richards develops a portal machine and accidentally accesses what he later dubs the Negative Zone, in truth the semi erased remains of the original version of his universe (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #11-12). He keeps his discovery of The Negative Zone, as well as his Portal Machine a complete and total secret. He begins dating Susan Storm.
January 1st, 1980-The F.F.I.'s Cosmic Ray Research results in the Space Shuttle Launch of Foundation 1. An accident aboard the shuttle while in orbit results in compromised shielding during a scheduled encounter with a cosmic radiation storm. All four crewman are exposed and die of fatal cosmic ray overdose.
July 7th, 1980, The Foundation 2 Shuttle Launch blows up on the landing pad at Cape Canaveral after improper fuel mixture creates a catastrophic explosion. All four crewmembers are killed.
August 7th, 1981-The Foundation 3 Shuttle Launch is a disaster due to sabotage by HYDRA, causing the shuttle to break apart mid-flight, killing all four crewmen aboard. All Foundation Program Launches are cancelled until the mole can be found, a process that takes two years.
April 4, 1984-The Foundation 4 Shuttle Launch commences at 4 PM, in Florida, consisting once again of four crewmen (Reed Richards, Fiancé Susan Storm, her brother Johnny Storm, and veteran Astronaut Benjamin Grimm). Insufficient shielding results in all four crewmen being exposed to immensely high levels of Cosmic Radiation, just barely short of lethal, instead resulting in superhuman mutations. Their miraculous survival causes the Media to dub them 'The Fantastic Four'.
July 5th, 1985-Reed Richards attempts to kill Doctor Doom at The U.N. The Fantastic Four disband after Reed Richards is subdued by his own team. Reed soon escapes custody.
March 7th, 1986-Scott Summers initiates the Mutant Riot at Essex Orphanage (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #1)
March 12th, 1986-Assault on District X. First known use of a Sentinel.
...
Scott Summers, Age 7, summer of 1976
En route to Bayville Church of The Purifier (Property of Stryker Ministries, U.S.A.)
Scott Summers tried not to fidget as his mother adjusted his lapels on his suit. It was the Sunday Service. Katherine always wanted her family to look their best at the Sunday Service.
Scott was his usual, serious self. That was the one thing Katherine Summers fussed over repeatedly. Scott never laughed. He would smile-rarely-but he never laughed. It made other children playing with him difficult.
He was a good, obedient child. Straight A's. Didn't get into fights with others. Was too quiet sometimes, like his father after coming back from The Air Force. Even Christopher had noticed that last part.
His older brothers, Adam (Age 10), Alex (Age 12), and Gabriel (Age 14), were all just as smartly dressed for the service. Katherine had bought them all new suits for it. Christopher, however, was in the same severe black suit and red tie with a white shirt that he always wore, a crimson eyepatch over his left eye, whose iris was blue in color, brown hair in that same sharp military cut with a neatly trimmed mustache. The Eyepatch had the symbol of his squadron, The Starjammers (A red Jolly Roger Flag surrounded by Fighter-Jet silhouettes, with the motto of its squadron, BELLUM PRIMA FACIE on the front of it in VERY tiny letters). A parting gift from his unit, like the ruby-sheen, skeletal Stark Industries prosthetic that had replaced his lost right hand.
"Scott Summers, I'd swear we were going to a funeral with how quiet you are sometimes..." Katherine said with a sigh. She was a woman around 5'11 in height, with an hourglass figure in a cornflower blue dress, her shoulder length blonde hair covered by a wide brimmed white hat. She had brown eyes. Scott got his eyes from her, while his brothers' eyes were blue like their father.
"It's a grim world, outside the church," Scott replied quietly and with precise diction, brown eyes staring straight at her. Posture straight. Tone terse. Expression neutral.
"And that's why hearing the Word makes everything better..." Katherine replied in a slightly fussy manner, before planting a kiss on his forehead. Scott smiled.
Slightly.
Katherine then stared at her other children.
"Gabriel Summers..." Katherine said in exasperation. "Take off those sunglasses, please..."
Gabriel, taller than his brothers, grinned and pulled off the aviator type sunglasses that had a golden sheen to them, revealing his blue eyes. Sometimes, at night, Scott could see Gabriel in the darkness at night in their house, because there was a white pinpoint of light at the center of them when in absolute darkness. It was very faint, just enough to dismiss as a light source coming from elsewhere. But Scott knew the light came from Gabriel's eyes and nowhere else. He wondered what the light was. He never voiced that he could see it.
"Where did you get those things?" Katherine asked.
"Dad," Gabriel answered, still grinning.
"Heh..." Christopher chuckled.
"Sunglasses is no place for Church!" she lectured firmly, even though they were nowhere near the church. "One would think you're trying to hide your eyes from God..."
"No Ma'am," Gabriel replied with a sigh. Scott remained silent at these exchanges. He always did. He knew things. Things he wasn't sure if he should talk about.
"I swear, sometimes I think you enjoy getting me riled up like this..." Katherine said with a roll of her eyes. But she cracked a small smile when she saw Gabriel still grinning. Gabriel had the same tan complexion as his father, with slightly messier brown hair. Katherine adored them all, but Scott saw subtle signs that she adored Gabriel slightly more. He was on the high school baseball team, top grades in class. He was so smart there was even talk of advancing him into college early at times. Christopher was against it. Katherine was warm to it, but her Church taught submissiveness to the husband, and she took her beliefs seriously. Christopher loved her enough to put up with things like Church on Sunday and remained silent and went along with the rest of it.
"What're we doing after Church?" his older brother, Adam asked. Adam had a lighter shade of brown hair and slightly paler skin, and it was noted he was unusually strong for a boy his age. He had green eyes and wore a brown suit. Scott himself wore a purple plaid suit for the service.
"I thought we might stop for a Burger at Snacky-Stark's..." Katherine suggested. "I've developed a right awful craving for a double bacon Stark with cheese..."
"I can get behind that..." Christopher said with a small amount of enthusiasm.
"Think we could go for a movie after?" the blond-haired Alex asked, blue eyes glimmering. He had gotten the most features of his mother.
Christopher looked at Katherine as the question came up.
"You know how I feel about the kinds of films they're showing in theatres," Katherine said quietly. "Which one?"
"It's that Captain America Biopic!" Alex said eagerly.
Katherine mulled it over.
"Sure. Why not..." Katherine finally agreed, with a small shrug.
As the family left out the front door of their home, they spotted the groundskeeper of the local high school, a somewhat short but bulky and muscular man with a tan complexion and dark grey, bushy hair that peaked on the sides of his temples, done in a mutton chop style, walking down the street in a tweed business suit that was mostly a bright yellow in color, with all black lapels, cuff links, and blue buttons. Christopher waved to him. "Mornin', James!"
"Same to you, Chris," Mister Howlett waved back. "Missed you at the bowlin' alley last week."
"There was a fire in one of the hangars. One of the new hires messed up and I was stuck cleaning the mess," Christopher answered with a shrug. It was a bright sunny day, the sun's rays cast upon everything and birds singing as they flew overhead. There was a gentle breeze.
"That's unfortunate. You beat me last time by a hairs margin," Mister Howlett said with a grin. "I been practicin'!"
Christopher chuckled. "I look forward to our rematch! How's Mariko?"
James smiled. "Just got done visiting her at the Hospital. They say she's due any day now. Baby's kickin' alot, but that hospital food makes me gag. I had to take care of some business and then I'm headin' back there..."
"That's wonderful! What are you naming the baby?" Katherine asked.
"If it's a boy, Logan. If it's a girl, Laura..." Howlett answered.
"Morning, Mister Howlett!" Gabriel called out.
"Hiya, Gabriel..." Mister Howlett grunted in a rough and tumble voice with a slight Canadian accent, giving the kid a nod. "Lovely day we're havin'..."
"Mister Howlett!" Katherine called out with a warm smile. "Just where would you be off to this morning, if it's not prying?"
"Had to pick up something sent by her parents from Japan to the post office..." he replied. "Off to listen to Stryker, again?"
Scott watched as his mother's lip twitch slightly. Scott himself picked up a subtle...edge...in the way Howlett said Stryker's name.
"Reverend Stryker is only an instrument of the Lord's will, Mister Howlett," she replied politely. "Matter of fact, I think you're one of the only people in town I haven't seen in the Church."
"Keeping the high school grounds clean is busy work. Burns me out most times by the end of the week," James replied with a small chuckle. "I read the Bible just fine, Miss Summers."
"But a House of God, in a communion of believers, can only reinforce one's personal faith. I pray you will consider showing your face there, someday, Mister Howlett," she replied in a friendly manner.
"I'll give it a thought, Miss Summers," James promised in a good-natured way that Scott knew on instinct he had no intention of keeping.
"Hey, James, you know Gabriel from the school, I don't think I've ever introduced you to my other children...this is Alex, Adam, and Scott..."
The wind blew between Howlett and the family, and Scott noted quietly how the other man's expression subtly changed almost to one of recognition, especially as he heard Scott's name.
"Nice to meet you three..." Howlett said with a nod after an entirely too silent few seconds of not speaking.
"Hi!" Alex said happily.
"Nice to meet you!" Adam greeted with a wide smile.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mister Howlett," Scott said quietly, expressionless, stare unwavering.
Katherine turned her head to Scott, worry crossing her features. Scott was always so quiet. So terse when speaking. She wondered if it wasn't some sort of condition that she might need a doctor to diagnose. She was scared she might have to get him treated and didn't want to risk exposing him to some quack doctor from a college with a fancy name. She prayed every night Scott would eventually be a happy, laughing little boy like her other children. But the silence and quiet, almost hawk like observation of others he displayed, at times exhibiting an almost clinical distance from others made her think it came from somewhere deep within. She wondered why God had made him so quiet, so careful with his words and so lacking in his ability to express himself. She loved him to bits. But he didn't play with toys. He didn't read anything except the Bible and old technical and engineering manuals. Army Handbooks. Medical Journals. Blueprints. Math Encyclopedias. He had surprised his father by giving him a rebuilt Stark Industries Radio-Television Watch he had assembled from scavenged parts. He had built a working radio-clock for her.
She was, of course extremely proud to have a boy so intelligent...
...and yet...
...what made him different?
What made him so silent?
She prayed every night for an insight, any insight, that God might share with her as to how to solve the enigma her youngest child was becoming.
"Same here, you three..." Howlett said in a friendly manner. Scott noted he seemed very subtly less happy than before. He did not know why. Mister Howlett had seemed sad for a split second before brightening back up.
"I better get goin'," he said. "You all take care of yourselves."
Christopher nodded. Scott watched as Howlett's sad look bubbled to the surface for another split second before he covered it with a smile and walked off.
"Children, you all remember to pray extra hard that Mister Howlett's wife delivers the baby safely during church." Katherine told them as they all headed to their black car...
"And pray extra hard for Mister Howlett to have a happy family..." she added as she got into the front passenger seat.
...
"Cyclops?"
"Hmmm?" Cyclops muttered.
"You look like you were thinking about something." Xavier said quietly.
"Just how to get us through safely..." Cyclops lied in a quiet tone.
The Cart sped along in the darkness of the excavation tunnel. Danger's now metallic pink skin reflected everything even in the dim light when her threat systems went off.
"Mutant DNA detected, a hundred meters ahead of us..." Danger whispered...
Cyclops' Atom Sense picked it up too, and if he closed his eyes, he could even see how some signatures were almost exactly the same in a way that shouldn't be possible.
Xavier brought the cart to a stop, hand signaling them to get out.
Cyclops took point. It WAS his idea. Might as well lead from the front.
"You think they left any survivors?" Cyclops asked in a whisper, holding the back-up Captain America Shield for protection.
"Not if they could help it or unless it's part of their plans," Xavier mused back in just as quiet a whisper. "Anybody who got out did it when there was still a chance to do so."
He crept forward, feeling the atoms of enemy units moving to intercept them. The tunnel was beginning to make a turn into several different routes, but the enemy was coming closest to the tunnel in the near farthest left, at a corner juncture.
"Don't fire until fired upon..." Xavier whispered. "If we get arrested for this, we can claim self-defense."
"Thinking of the litigation issues, eh?" Cyclops muttered, a faint trace of amusement in his tone.
"Somebody has to..." Xavier grumbled.
Cyclops tensed and got the shield up just as hot orange colored Optic Blasts lanced out from the darkness.
He had that shield up in a hot second deflecting their intense, body-shattering blasts either into the walls or back to them. Danger's new energy weapons made her body split open, unleashing smaller versions of the devastating green energy blasts of the Sentinel she had taken the tech from, blasting into a small crowds of Optic Soldiers and turning them into red smears on the tunnel grounds and walls, while Xavier fired his shotgun at the faces of whoever he could spot as Cyclops advanced, blocking with the shield, firing his own beams from behind the cover it provided, using that strange, oversized Psionic Gauntlet in conjunction, lifting an optic soldier through invisible means at a distance and hurling him brutally into a wall, and repeating the process by using the strange gauntlet on multiple other squads that poured through multiple entrances.
Cyclops threw the Shield just like he had seen his childhood hero do in countless public demonstrations. It slammed into the sternum of an Optic Soldier, bounced off and returned to him due to the sheer force with which he had thrown it. The Optic soldier struggled to rise, but Danger stopped that with a railgun hidden in her shoulder putting a round into him. The weapon retracted back into her body as orange optic blasts hit her, making her stagger backwards, but otherwise not penetrating her skin. Her internals got rattled however, and these knocked out some of her internal weapons, even though they didn't pierce her reflective pink skin.
Careful, she reminded herself as both her arms split into multiple laser cannons and leveled the squad firing at her. You're at a pre-Nimrod stage of development. But you aren't quite Nimrod-Grade.
Not yet, anyway...
Meanwhile, Cyclops decided to try that ricochet trick Mystique had taught him. (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #17)
He switched his monocle to the beam setting, focused, while the technique was still fresh in his head and snapped off a quick beam of red that bounced off the wall it hit due to the psionic lens that he created on the rockface's surface. It smashed into an Optic Soldier and pulverized his chest cavity on impact, making the whole underground structure rumble as the Soldier was sent flying by the beam into the squad of his fellow visor-wearers. That was the last one in the area. for the moment.
"You've done this before." Xavier remarked grimly to Cyclops as he reloaded his shotgun.
"Hmmm?" The teenage Mutant grunted in curiosity.
"Killing, I mean. You're not even shaking." Xavier elaborated. Things were slowly making a bit more sense about Cyclops. How much had Essex made him forget?
"Doesn't it bother you?" Xavier asked, concerned,
"Probably..." Cyclops admitted hesitantly with a deep frown, now deeply disturbed at Xavier pointing out how little taking a life had shaken him emotionally. Then again. He noticed of himself a certain cold detachment in almost everything. "Does it bother you?"
Xavier was silent at the question, realizing just how much work was ahead of him in order actually reach Cyclops.
"Yes, Cyclops. It does bother me..." Xavier said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It always bothers me. And where you are concerned...it should start bothering you also..."
He didn't know if it was his mutation affecting his reactions at the neurological level, the results of Essex's 'tests' filtering through more and more as time passed, or both. Perhaps he had some sort of undiagnosed personality disorder in conjunction to all of that.
Cyclops KNEW that killing that Optic soldier should deeply bother him. He KNEW that.
Yet it didn't. Not deeply, it was more like a nagging itch, a sense of having done something wrong, but it was so vague, and Scott didn't see the Optic Soldiers as people, part of him actively dehumanizing them, actively fighting his urge to be bothered at slaying such opponents. He was more bothered by Xavier noticing how easily he could kill than the act in of itself. He didn't understand why Xavier being bothered by it should bother him. They had known each other barely five days, and he was out cold for three of those days. It wasn't like he was seeking his approval...his opinion of the man as an admittedly severely intelligent but naive, in-over-his-head rich activist had only barely begun to be challenged but the more recent, aggressive traits Xavier had displayed.
"We survive this, we'll probably need to develop a strategy for how to take people alive..." Cyclops observed clinically. The killing was a problem, but what was the alternative? The Optic Soldiers were literally THAT dangerous given the blasted apart bodies he had seen. Some of those bodies had been children.
They had crossed a line, killing children. As far as Cyclops was concerned, Essex and the lives of whoever were helping them were forfeit if he lived long enough to get his eyes on her and them.
That said, he did NOT want the killing to become a habit...Xavier's words had badly shaken him on the inside after pointing it out.
His Atomic Sense started tingling, and he saw the atoms of the surviving optic soldiers as they rose and advanced VERY cautiously, and as soon as he got in range he began sprinting, diving in front of the passage entrance and letting off a rapid spray of optic bolts with the aid of his bulky, monocle-like visor's machine-gun setting, which slammed into enemy Visor-Soldiers with the force of a heavy, seventy caliber armor piercing round made of depleted uranium, the fire rate of which was four times that of the MG-42 General Purpose Machine Gun, and each bolt moved about eight times faster than bullets fired from said gun. The Optic Soldiers were ruthless however, attempting to exploit any gap, any mistake made during the fight. More than once, Cyclops had to duck a spray of their orange blasts in their scatter setting, which functioned like an energy based, head mounted shotgun that DEMOLISHED any surface they struck, and Xavier fired one of the grenades in his launcher at the squad, pulling Cyclops away as it detonated, enveloping soldiers in a psionic field designed to paralyze the parts of the brain that controlled movement and breathing. The shuddered and shook violently as their brains started to suffer damage from not getting any oxygen. It was a horrible way to die, and Xavier knew it, but after seeing the slain bodies of the innocent he had promised safe haven, Xavier felt the punishment should fit their crime, even as he felt sick at knowing what they were experiencing, yet not able to perceive an alternative that didn't end in death for such a dangerous enemy. Some managed to surprise Scott by some using their optic blasts to slide their body backwards out of his shots, and what's more, they used it strategically, forcing Scott to predict the path and lead his shots at times.
Make no mistake...the Optic Bolt Spray turned anyone who they were focused on into paste in a quarter of a quarter of a second. Each bolt that hit rock left a DEEP impact crater. Xavier's mouth dropped open at the sheer devastation Cyclops inflicted with each spray as he moved forward, able to dodge the beams at such close, confined ranges due to seeing where the energy would go, knowing by instinct where their eye was directed. His visor operated almost like a head-mounted flak cannon as he advanced down the tunnel, shredding into the optic soldiers so badly they actually were forced to make a partial retreat even as they sounded the general alert on their radios. Danger was a bit slack jawed herself: The energy readings she was getting just from the bolt spray he used told her that even with all her current upgrades, just one of those tiny bolts leaving his visor could STILL severely damage her. The version of Cyclops in her database would have needed a full-strength optic blast sustained for more than eight seconds to inflict that sort of damage on her current state.
She knew his history. At least her creator, the Magneto of the Semi-Erased reality had. Scott had been injured escaping a falling plane with a parachute. Only he and his brother Alex had escaped. But as a result of brain damage he had received, he had never been able to control his optic blasts. As he had later learned, the family had been abducted by the Shi'ar-
Her circuits fluctuated at the realization. The Construct, Zarda, had said the Shi'ar had been all but wiped out this time around...
That meant...
...that meant there had probably been no-one to abduct his remaining family.
Did they all go down with the plane this time? Is that the difference? Was he not able to escape with the parachute, for whatever reason? The hyper-futuristic Android wondered with a growing horror at the implication.
Her creator, the alternate future Magneto (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #12) had his own theories, her database told her; he had always suspected the Brain Damage his version of Scott had suffered had done a lot more than just ruin his ability to control his blasts; It had denied him the means to access the rest of his mutation, which, given the capabilities his brothers Alex and Gabriel had demonstrated, might have been potentially world-shaking. He too, had traveled the Multiverse at times. Magneto suspected his theory applied to more versions of Scott than just his version of Scott. The Brain Damage may have even contributed to the at times cold and emotionless behavior, yet this Scott seemed to need no tragic childhood injury as an excuse for how cold he behaved, casting doubt on the latter part of Magneto's musings on the subject.
It made her wonder yet again: What happened that day, when this Scott Summers went up into the sky with his family for the last time? What had produced this Dark Cyclops (A name she was using in private because she currently lacked more fitting terminology to describe her observation of this version of Cyclops) grimly clearing their path to Essex, seemingly acting as though he was a dead man walking?
What had Essex put him through, exactly?
What had Scott put himself through?
No matter what Universe her creator had traveled to, he had never found a version of Scott that could control his blasts, ever. And whenever they suddenly, finally gain control for whatever reason, he had observed, they would almost immediately lose the ability to do so due to the worst luck imaginable.
Seeing a Scott who could prevent his eyes from firing their endless, deadly energy (And, to top it off, his blasts seemed even more powerful than normal) was the multiversal equivalent of finding a unicorn.
Cyclops went for his radio.
"Mystique, come in..." he said.
"Ja, Herr Zyklop?" Mystique asked.
"We've made contact with the Optic Soldiers." Cyclops answered.
"Tough Bastards, huh?" Mystique asked. "Any injuries amongst you?"
"None so far...will keep you updated as things progress..." he replied, cutting transmission.
...
The others, though still on standby, busied themselves by trying to find injured and wounded buried under the rubble. Storm was using what limited first aid knowledge she had acquired for treating herself to try and assist the on-sight medics as an emergency nurse. The mutants and the humans that had been recovered so far had been horribly maimed. It reminded her of Kenya, wading through the bodies...
The smells wanted to make her gag. She struggled not to be sick as she applied stitches, assisted in treating burns and removing shrapnel. She heard the screams as she assisted the volunteer Medic, Stephen, who worked with a meticulousness and precision to save as many as he could realistically could. Ororo had never been exposed to the brutal realities of Triage. Today was a crash course. The one mercy that kept the smell from overpowering her was the surgical mask she wore. Kurt found people the fastest and was also vital in teleporting the largest debris into piles to be carefully broken down by Mystique opening portals thanks to the genes she had absorbed from the now dead Blink (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #16) with Piotr lifting the larger pieces up to fit them in part way so Mystique could 'cut' the debris by closing the portals when the pieces were only part of the way through. Piotr kept silent, desperate to avoid engaging Mystique in conversation, her very presence making his skin crawl. Though she looked rather beautiful now even with her strange crimson skin, hourglass doll-like anatomy and slicked back blue-black hair, he would rather have been anywhere but around her. She was an impossibility: A mutant displaying four separate powers.
Eventually, overwhelmed by the horrible smell and the memories of Kenya, Ororo was forced to run out of the triage unit set up. She sincerely wanted to help the people, but her sense of smell and her own head full of dark thoughts had overwhelmed her. She vomited up that hotdog she had eaten at the park with Scott (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #13).
Mystique turned around, face twisting in sympathy, and walked over, grabbing a sealed bottle of water from a crate of them set up by emergency volunteers. Ororo wanted to shudder at her approach, but the teenager hid it, not wanting to get anywhere near the abomination that looked different every time she saw her, yet too proud to show true fear.
Mystique offered her the bottle of water. After a few moments of visible hesitation, Ororo snatched it from her hand and didn't even say thanks. She took a swig, swished it in her mouth, and spat it on the ground.
"I...I want to help...really..." Ororo trailed, glowing red death glare eyes narrowing at her presence in barely concealed suspicion. Ororo couldn't help but wonder what would happen if Mystique absorbed HER genes. Would anything be able to stop her.
That wasn't the only thing bothering her.
"Shouldn't..." Ororo added hesitantly, trying to distract herself from the terror of being in proximity to Mystique. "Shouldn't we send at least someone after them? I hate that we just let them go in there without anyone else as bait. It's not right. One of us should be helping them."
"I know the situation is not ideal, Frau Blitz-Hexe, but surely you understand Cyclops' caution..." Mystique replied, trying to empathize. "This Essex clearly has resources that rival Charles. And if she IS a Mutant like we are all suspecting, and if she is as resourceful as he suspects...his caution will be vindicated. Besides, our powers are very useful for finding survivors here."
"It doesn't feel right..." Storm protested, glowing red eyes tightening into a glare, taking an unconscious step away from the shapeshifting abomination. "That's three individuals against a small army, one of whom is only human! He's trying to do too much with too little!"
"When it's our time to intervene, we will. Part of victory lies in patience, Frau Blitz-Hexe." Mystique cautioned. "I promise you, Ororo, if I think they're getting in too deep, I'll make a judgement call and intervene."
"We should be intervening now..." she insisted, thunder cracking loudly over the mountain and making some people duck slightly on instinct.
"Your desire to help is admirable, but you must give the process a chance to work..." Mystique reasoned though she looked up for a moment in concern. "Your time will come, Ororo. Believe that."
"Yeah, whatever..." Ororo grumbled, walking off, eager to be out of Mystique's sight. She didn't trust her.
And part of her was concerned about Scott. She hated how she was reacting to him. She KNEW he was messed up...yet her thoughts started drifting towards him slightly...
There were other things she kept noticing...and it was those things she was liking.
She liked how cute he was. How his no-nonsense nature was like catnip to her. She LIKED serious. She LOVED Mysterious. Maybe because she wasn't a happy-go-lucky sort either. She liked that he was smart enough to speak another language. How he didn't hesitate to do what he wanted. She liked how his first thought on the road home was to protect the people on it who were in danger. (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #13). She HATED especially how strong her attraction to him had gotten after only a relatively short amount of time. The guy wasn't even TRYING!
Power Princess had busied herself using her Telekinesis to lift up buildings to look for the injured, healing them with a glowing pink light from her mouth as soon as she found them in the rubble. That is, if they were still alive when she found them. Kurt was sparing as much time as possible to read the dying their last rites when he wasn't teleporting debris away for the search teams. Either way it was clear; District X was done. It would have to be completely abandoned.
She spotted Ororo, still nauseated looking and embarrassed at throwing up in front of everyone, moving farther away, desperately trying to catch some air. The Princess excused herself for the moment and flew over to Ororo, hovering slightly above her.
"Is there any way I can help you, Ororo?" Zarda asked, feeling her pain and distress.
"I just need air..." Ororo snarled, pulling off her biker jacket and slinging it over her shoulder, hyperventilating. The Thunder overhead grew louder and closer.
"Ororo..." Zarda said softly. "Please. You have to calm down. For your own good. And everyone else's."
"I know that!" Ororo snapped back, irritated and confused and scared over this whole situation, still in denial about being Omega Level. The thunder sounded like an explosion overhead, and a few cried out in terror.
"Ororo..." Zarda said softly. "Please. Take a deep breath..."
Ororo hesitated but steadied her breathing. Truth was, she didn't trust Zarda any more than she trusted Mystique. Did the golem even have a soul?
However, Zarda did have a point. Ororo had discovered that the lightning strength tied directly to how angry or otherwise stressed she was.
The thunder hadn't been this strong in a while. Not since Harlem.
It had been far worse in Kenya.
Zarda held out her hands. "Take them. Please."
Ororo took a deep breath and took Zarda's hands.
"You're not alone." Zarda promised. "Reaching out to others when you're in trouble isn't a sign of weakness..."
Ororo's breathing steadied. Her emotions went back to their default state of simmering anger and guilt buried deep in order to function properly and at least be able to talk to others without being a grouch. The electricity only threatening to escape her body instead of the atmosphere.
Ororo withdrew her hands back to herself.
"You're constantly angry. Even when you seem calm." Zarda noticed.
"That part of your powers, right? Sensing emotions?" Ororo asked hesitantly.
"Yes." Zarda answered, nodding. "And your powers are tied to your emotional state. If I had let that go on, a lot of people could have been hurt. Have you ever lost control of it completely?"
Ororo didn't answer. Not at first.
"They went a little haywire...once..." she said finally, looking away from Zarda slightly as she said it, stare unfocused, expression slightly blank as she went somewhere else in her head.
A place her mother's tribe had taken her over her Mother and Father's objections...
"Ororo?" Zarda asked. "Are you alright?"
"I'm stable..." Ororo answered tersely, the teenager's expression hardening into her typical low-key death glare that Cyclops secretly thought attractive. She averted her gaze, partly so that Zarda could not fully glimpse her uncertainty, and partly because everything about Zarda disturbed Ororo. But at least Ororo could tell herself she stood a chance if Zarda turned out to be some sort of double agent for some hidden scheme of Loki's. Only Mystique elicited more concern. What especially terrified Ororo about Mystique was just how naive she seemingly was about everything. She could already absorb DNA and gain another Mutant's power...what if the temptation to be the parasite she started out as returned?
"And the name is Storm..." she added a second later.
"And a fiery tempest of a Storm at that...though far from one at her full strength..." Zarda replied. "You use anger to summon it...the lightning..."
"Am I so obvious?" Storm replied dryly.
"Your anger comes easily. That's why the lightning has gotten easier and easier to use as time goes on, hasn't it?" Zarda inquired, folding her arms over a voluptuous, scantily clad torso.
"Yes." Storm answered quietly.
"Yes...it comes almost too easily now, doesn't it. Every day your frustration grows at not having caught Essex. Every day, your normal tempest threatens to spike a little easier."
Your lightning is also much more powerful and destructive than most versions of you, Zarda thought in private.
"Yes." Storm admitted in a sullen manner.
"Storm..." Zarda trailed, again very gently, deciding to start slowly. "Your lightning has more uses than mere destruction. Surely you have discovered some by this point."
"A few..." Storm replied neutrally, messy, jet-black hair falling over her face.
"Your electricity is strong enough I bet you can levitate yourself..." Zarda challenged.
Storm's expression shifted to an extremely downplayed expression of curiosity.
"...how?" Storm asked.
"Electrostatic Manipulation. Storm, that's what you are. A controller of fundamental forces." Zarda explained.
"Is that how you fly?" Storm asked.
Zarda shook her head. " My flight and telekinesis are psionic. But you can learn to manipulate electromagnetism in such a way that allows you to mimic what I do..."
The words of the ghost of Mother Righteous when she had faced that abomination in Carter Slade's secret lair (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #13) haunted her.
Zarda floated above her.
"It's all about will, Ororo..." Zarda explained. "The lightning within you travels through the sky unimpeded. Therefore, so can you...it's like walking but with your mind instead of your legs..."
Zarda held out her hand.
"Now walk up to me." She said, smiling.
Storm tried to think of what to feel besides anger to discharge electricity or create a shield or tether. She had never tried to move her own body. Half because she was afraid she might somehow kill herself in the attempt. Half because she was afraid she would succeed.
She imagined her anger as a rocket burst under her feet.
The lower half of her body was completely enveloped in red electricity, and she started to shoot upward at Mach speed uncontrollably before Zarda stopped her with her telekinesis, a pink field of Psionic energy enveloping Ororo with a cry of surprise.
"I said walk, not run..." Zarda chided mildly. "It seems your anger does have uses even beyond what you have discovered already. But anger has its place. Perhaps in the open sky, not a solid granite ceiling that would turn you into salsa dip on impact."
Storm forced the imagining of rockets firing from her head, cursing herself for the stupid move.
"Those who rely only on anger burn out eventually..." Zarda said lowering Ororo gently to the ground.
"Those who rely only on anger and nothing else often not only burn out from it but end up finding anger is all they have left..." Zarda said. "What is there in you besides Anger, Ororo? Your name means 'Beauty'. Where is it? There is beauty in Love. What do you Love?"
Ororo hesitated, looking off before going into her pocket and pulling out a large fat, dark ruby out that was oval and smooth in shape.
Zarda gazed upon it.
"The Ruby of Ayesha..." Zarda whispered.
Storm's eyes widened.
"Where did you hear that name?" Storm asked in a frightened hiss, backing away.
"All Power Princesses know the property of a Sorcerer Supreme upon sight..." Zarda answered. "Especially the Property of the First Sorcerer Supreme, from whom you are descended-"
"No more talk of that!" Storm hissed, thunder rumbling over the mountain. "Never say her name in front of me again, ever."
Zarda held up her hands placatingly.
Storm glanced down at the ruby, getting her emotions under control.
"As far as I am concerned this is the Stone my mother gave me as a gift for my twelfth birthday, which I've carried ever since. That's all it is to me. That's all I prefer to think of it as..." Storm said sullenly. "I'll suffer no talk of Sorcerer Supremes or Hadari Yao's or Sacred Lines of Priestesses. All that stuff stays back in Kenya where I left it."
"As you wish..." Zarda replied respectfully. "This Ruby represents your Mother to you..."
"Yes." Storm answered, death glare hardening.
"You love your Mother."
"Am I so obvious?" Storm muttered in bitter sarcasm.
"Focus on that love for your Mother. Focus on that, instead of anger at yourself. Focus on your love for your mother...and walk to me with your mind..." Zarda encouraged, floating back up and holding out her hand.
Storm hesitated, trying to force the now constantly brimming anger under the surface to recede just long enough to recall how it felt to hear her mother softly sing her to sleep in Swahili...
Small, tiny arcs of red lightning arced off her legs and she slowly, shakily levitated up to where Zarda was. She almost lost it due to her shock it was working, but eventually, she unsteadily clasped Zarda's hand, and they both lowered to the floor.
"See? You are more than Anger..." Zarda praised. "Love is much more powerful than Anger."
"Love isn't going to bring down Essex."
"Perhaps not..." Zarda conceded. "But it will give you the strength you need to protect others around you, Storm. I sense such strength deep within you."
Zarda placed a hand on Storm's shoulder.
"That strength made you work where others would have let the smells overwhelm them long before. You tried to help until your own body literally forced you to run away. Do not be so certain that such strength cannot slay Essex. You are much, much more than Anger and Guilt, Ororo Munroe..." Zarda said, looking back down at the ruby in Storm's hand.
"Perhaps keeping that reminder somewhere other than your pocket would help..." The Asgardian Construct suggested.
Storm looked around, saw a length of fabric and a shard of rebar on the ground.
She struggled to lift them at first. She had never thought in this manner before. Trying to think of her emotions as a hammer and chisel. It was an alien thought process for someone who for months had had to channel anger constantly to use the lightning. It had to come quick, hot and ready. Her anger was tied to the lightning.
It could even be argued, in some ways, that her anger WAS the lightning.
Her Mother's songs in Swahili finally made the fabric lift and rebar lift. Her anger twisted the shard of rebar, smoothing down its rough edges, and breaking it down into metal fastenings and a mount for the ruby, the fabric being warped by a nascent, hesitant will that had never tried to do this before. That had never imagined it was possible to do it.
She fashioned a choker, the effects of the red electricity somehow warping the color of the materials to gold as she fell to her knees, close to blacking out from the strain as she at last fitted the ruby to it, encasing it with crude, tiny claw grips at the edges that closed snugly around it.
Storm stumbled back, dizzy and nauseated from the strain as Zarda caught her and the choker.
"Steady...shhh..." Zarda said, helping Storm to her feet.
"Rage and Serenity...if you find the balance between those...eventually, what you have just achieved will be as child's play..." Zarda said to a very quiet Storm, handing her the new choker, which Storm clasped around her neck.
"Only you decide the level of control you want to have. The level of mastery you need. No one else." Zarda said gently.
Storm remained silent, still somewhat suspicious of the Golem. But even she could not deny she had been shown something useful.
"Thanks..." Storm said, taking a deep breath and going back to help with the Triage efforts.
Even as she worked though, tried to help as many as she could, she began to worry about the three in the tunnels once again...
...and especially Scott...
...
The trio in the tunnels finally came across a pile of dead District X tunnel excavators. They had been killed execution style by an optic blast to the back of the skull. The results of such a close-range shot were not pretty, and don't warrant more description for the sake of the reader's stomach. Danger looked completely horrified by the cruelty of the optic soldiers, hand going to her mouth in disgust. Human or Mutant, it did not matter. They had been murdered all the same.
"Shot like dogs..." Xavier said with a grimace. "Not even an opportunity to defend themselves. Their only crime was being here."
"I saw rifles in Mutant hands, Xavier. Didn't see too much of that back in New York..." Cyclops noted.
"Normally, I eschew resorting to violent means, but my advice is not always followed in all cases. I felt it would be ill advised to manufacture weapons in these havens. Normally, they agree, but as District X grew in size, my concerns regarding weapons manufacturing were eventually overruled."
Xavier's eyes went downcast.
"In light of that I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised they would decide to hide something like Threshold from me..." he admitted. "I'm not mad. I just wish they had shown more sense than that. They were playing with fire."
"This would have happened whether they were armed or not, Professor..." Cyclops replied. "If they had been completely unarmed, I doubt hardly any of them would have survived."
"Their paranoia was justified. Even I can't ignore that," Xavier said. "I'm just sad to see it come to this once more is all. Selfish people murdering innocents just to have a say over the world's future, when they could have all the say they could want if they would only participate with the world instead of trying to impose upon it."
"Someone like Essex would never accept anything less than their will always being paramount." Cyclops replied. "How she ran that Orphanage told me everything I needed to know about her. It was a microcosm of how she would run the world if she could."
Cyclops stood up.
"It's like Lincoln said: If you want to know someone's real nature, give them power." Cyclops added.
There was beeping from their radio.
"Go ahead, Mystique..." Cyclops said.
"Herr Zyklop, the others have expressed concerns about it being just you three. Are you sure I can't persuade you to take at least one more with you?" Mystique asked.
Cyclops sighed, looking at the others. He cut transmission a moment.
"What do you two think? Should we risk it?" Cyclops asked.
"This seems like the perfect opportunity to test that brain you all let me modify," Danger suggested. (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #13, #16)
"What did you 'do' to that brain exactly?" Xavier questioned.
"I made it ambulatory!" Danger confirmed happily. "The mind was quite gone, but I compensated with information from my databases on powerful Mutants."
"Danger, if we make it out of this, we're going to have you sit down and discuss just what exactly you know and what you don't..." Xavier warned her firmly. "Toad hasn't been shooting straight with me about you from the start (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #14), and only more pressing matters are stopping me from getting to the bottom of what's up with you and all your convenient knowledge and insane technological capacity that even Stark himself would struggle to match."
Danger only tilted her head, her pink metallic skin reflecting his scowling face.
"Would you like the long version, or the short version?" she simply asked. "Because I can assure you, you won't like either."
"What exactly did you 'do' to that brain?" Cyclops asked Danger.
"Oh, there wasn't much to do. The Brain was a clone of someone with abilities very similar to another mutant in my database. One reliant on cellular control over their body. Natural Mutant, surprisingly. No gene grafting. Wasn't expecting that." Danger answered with a shrug at providing the horrific reveal. "Alpha-Level too...I merely restored it to its original state and worked from there..."
Xavier pinched his nose. "Good God, what did I agree to on that Jet..." he muttered.
"It's perfectly safe! I took EXTENSIVE precautions, I assure you..." Danger claimed innocently. "Why, I had those nanites scrub those early nineteenth century neurons with a fine-tooth comb! I upgraded the cybernetics to serve as an extra firewall against reversions and as a way to limit it from becoming too powerful. I even had genetic therapy to reintroduce the genes responsible for empathy. I even had the nanites surgically clone micro empathy centers all over just to be safe! and to introduce new coding in the DNA that makes the Brain keep creating them."
"Alpha-Level?" Cyclops questioned.
"Just under Omega in terms of potential. Sometimes Alphas later evolve into Omega's and the genetics of the brain I rewrote have immense potential in that direction. Sometimes Alphas have multiple secondary and tertiary powers." she answered.
"That means Essex is Alpha Level!" Xavier hissed. "Why didn't you mention this earlier?!"
"Well, around the time of the briefing, my Nanites were still extensively breaking down the brain tissue and rebuilding it from the ground up. It had quite badly degraded from its time in the gel preservative, and it was a priceless opportunity to get someone extremely lethal but controllable on our side..." Danger said unapologetically. "My directives are to safeguard the interests of Mutant-Kind as defined by the ideology of Mutant-Human Coexistence under the most ideal, egalitarian circumstances that can possibly be achieved. This task requires a certain level of ruthlessness to accomplish in certain areas, such as co-opting enemy genetics and psionic technology for one's own unabashedly self-interested purpose, even though it might risk raising ethical objections. Besides, if these readings I got while I was reworking that ball of expired noodles are any indicators, we can expect a thrashing regardless. There really is no way to tell what Essex is liable to do until we encounter Essex."
"You're really friggin' starting to live up to your codename, Elektra..." Xavier said with a roll of his eyes. "Then again, I really should have thought ahead..."
"Yeah, I walked right into this one, too..." Cyclops muttered. "Activate the Brain of that freak and get it over to us if you can. Ten bucks says Storm's gonna be pissed..."
"Bet." Charles replied dryly. "At least it won't be Omega-Level..."
"Give it time..." Cyclops replied tersely.
"It really 'is' perfectly safe. You'll see!" Danger said happily.
"Why am I suddenly remembering all those terrifying arguments about Nuclear Proliferation-?" Xavier muttered, shaking his head in irritation and rubbing his temple. "When can we expect it's arrival?"
"Oh, it won't be ready for some time, even after I send the deploy signal, due to last minute error checks. I imagine Us and Essex being at each other's throat's long before that." Danger answered merrily, not understanding just how far she had escalated the situation.
Xavier sighed. "Fine, do it. I'm gonna kick myself in the rear for it later but do it." he snapped.
"At once..." she said, sending to the deploy signal to the thing she had modified aboard the Jet.
...
Bobby screamed as the thing with red eyes and the diamond on its forehead in the shadows probed his mind by Force in the center of Threshold.
"This Nightcrawler will make an excellent source of study...and this Phoenix Stone...such astounding properties. Such golden eggs you have uncovered. It almost pains me to have to resort to obtaining it so decisively. But there is no room for pity when it comes to evolution. Only progress..." the red eyed woman in the shadows said. "But you, Mister Drake. I confess to...disappointment...such god like potential. Yet you waste it as a mere hitman for the Morlocks."
Bobby was lifted up, pale albino features lined with strain.
"Look at this...a glorious legacy. A sign of our destiny to advance the cause of civilization. And you treat it as only another thing to ice over and leave in the snow..." the voice said with clear scorn, making him look at the ancient futuristic remains of the underground realm.
"Where would society have gone with someone like you calling the shots, I wonder. Oh, wait. I don't have to. I see it everywhere, every day, all around us."
An Optic Soldier ran up to the red eyed woman as she continued to examine the Nude Golden Loki Statue somehow concealing the Phoenix Stone in its depths.
"Mistress, our forces have reported severe resistance in Tunnel System 1-X. The Morlocks have sent Scott Summers, Charles Xavier, and some sort of advanced Android to route us."
"Scott..." the voice in the shadows trailed. "My old friend...so you've decided to really throw your hat into the game, eh?"
The woman in the shadows chuckled.
"At last, a challenge. I grow so bored, so easily, putting rudderless, unambitious upstarts like Drake in their place..." the voice scoffed, before the woman that voice was attached to turned to the Soldier.
"Send in the Optic Commandos and as many Greycrow clones as you can spare. I want to give my long-time research partner and protege the proper welcome he deserves." The Woman in the shadows instructed the soldier. "See to it at once."
"Yes, Mistress..." the Soldier said, running off to carry out her orders.
"Do you know who is coming here, Mister Drake?" asked the voice in the shadows. "Someone who, even at their absolute lowest point...is ten times the man you are at your absolute best."
There was a moment's pause before the next words came out of her mouth with the subtle edge of fanaticism...
"It is why the only way he could be more perfect...was if he were totally sinister..."