Chapter Two: Enemies
Against the gently rolling hills that bled into the thick, untamed forest, there was the image of peace and family in this place. A scion of knowledge, of tolerance, of understanding the likes of which no human had provided before and likely never would again. Charles Xavier had died, yes, but his dream lived on.
The dark man watched from his high window as children laughed and played in the warm glow of dusk. Such things were alien to him. Never in his life had he played with such abandon, such security. Those things were tales of the past, fairy stories told to soothe away the fears when the concussion of explosives shattered the night and friends failed to come home.
Bishop placed a hand on the cool pane, closing his eyes briefly to relish the strange sound of carefree laughter. Football. He had never seen the game played this way before. It was as most things in his life: just another story from a better past.
Mother had taught him about things like this. She drilled into his head from an early age, before and during the days of war, how civilization had once operated. Though she had fought for mutant rights her entire life, she was not jaded by it. She refused to be. Her smile and warmth were ever present, creating this thing called hope deep inside his soul.
Father had taught him determination to fight; Mother taught him what he was fighting for.
His sister would have loved to see this. Bishop wished he could capture the image for her; to show his cynical sibling that everything they had been told was reality. He could almost imagine them here as children, playing in the grass as carefree children were supposed to.
He missed them. Of all the things he could possibly wish for, he wanted to see his beloved family again. Bishop was not a fool. He knew, even at the tender age of fifteen when they began training him for this mission, that the undertaking would ever alter his world.
It would take them from him. Forever.
“Mother.” He whispered to the quiet, envisioning her in his mind as he always saw her. Serene, beautiful, deadly.
There was much to do now, he mused opening his eyes once more to the frolicsome children out of doors. Many seeming catalysts existed in this time and he had to explore each and every one of them to determine the cause of the war. The first, he knew, would happen in mere moments.
Collecting his plasma gun, Bishop poured some steel into his spine and forced himself to leave the window. Battle was on the horizon, which is why this day was selected, so his sentimentality would have to wait. The deaths of Xavier, Phoenix, and Cyclops had been dismissed at this catalyst when Storm took up the torch to lead the legendary X-Men.
She had no idea what that one impulsive decision had done. He knew. He could never tell her.
Striding from the bedroom he’d been given after several hours of shouted, angry words between Wolverine and Storm, he paused to listen for them. No matter what that uncanny duo did, they did it loudly. Some things never changed.
It took only seconds for the dulcet tones of Storm to reach his ears. She was just down the hall, moving closer with every step. Bishop faded into the shadows of a nearby alcove to listen, curious when his name immediately crossed her lips as she drifted into earshot.
“Bishop is a liability, Logan,” she was saying in that imperious tone. “We shouldn’t have him anywhere near the children.”
“What should we do with him?” Logan’s deep baritone rumbled in reply. “Give him a hearty slap on the back and show him the door?”
“Why, Wolverine,” Storm replied with obvious mocking. “That is the most intelligent thing I have ever heard leave your lips.”
“He’s from the flamin’ future, Storm,” Wolverine snarled back.
“So he claims,” she responded heatedly. “There are special places for people such as he. Bellevue immediately springs to mind.”
“You think the kid needs a padded cell?”
“I think he is a gun-toting psychopath.”
Bishop winced, a small smile curving his lips. Yes, she was definitely the woman he remembered. The woman had the sharpest tongue on the planet. He’d heard stories of how she could cow an entire regiment with one scornful comment.
“Really?” Logan questioned with laughter in his voice as they came around the corner. “You hear that, Bishop?”
He did not have to see her face to know there was murder reflected in her dark eyes. Wolverine had the mysterious knack for getting under her skin. She would have expected him to warn her that the man they spoke of was within sniffing range.
Bishop was relatively sure that was a deliberate mistake on the other man’s part.
Stepping from the shadows, emotions quickly covered, Bishop shouldered his plasma rifle and inhaled deeply. “You should suit up.”
“Oh?” Storm crossed her arms over her chest, a defensive move. “And why is that?”
“Get the kids into the underground levels, seal off the entrances into the tunnels.” Bishop ordered, moving past her.
“Trouble?” Wolverine questioned, easily falling into step beside him.
“You have no idea.”
~**~
Storm adjusted the collar of her leather uniform, ensuring that Marie had all of the instructions needed to care for the children. She hated taking anything like this on faith, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. That went doubly for anything having to do with the children entrusted to her care.
Once the lower levels were sealed with her X-Man passcode, Storm moved quickly upstairs. This entire situation set her teeth on edge. In her orderly, structured world things like time travel and strangers from the future were confined to the safety of paperbacks and film. Coming face to face with the impossible tweaked her nose slightly.
She did not believe this young man, at least not yet. Charles had always taught her to question herself and her perceptions. Personality, he told her, colored every viewpoint of everything in the world. It was why so many cultures and races could not get along for longer than a few years without someone’s opinion offending another.
When she reached the upper levels, Beast greeted her with a warm smile. She returned the gesture wanly, wanting to get this terrible charade over with. Whatever Bishop was certain would happen today was likely a fluke or just a ploy to make them believe him.
If she found out he had been wasting her valuable time, he would need several doctors and miles of duct tape to put his mangled body back together.
“Nothin’ yet,” Logan reported as he sauntered in from outdoors, where he’d been doing a preliminary smell-check.
Bishop stood in the exact center of the posh foyer, his hands griping the odd weapon with white knuckles. There was no expression on his face as he stared straight ahead, but determination and righteousness seemed to radiate from him.
He was a handsome man, she admitted to herself. Even the horrible mark of a mutant over his eye was borne proudly, as though he refused to believe that mark was something to be ashamed of. For that Ororo could give him a slight nod of respect. He accepted what he was without apology or remorse.
During her long, silent inspection of him, the man had met her gaze. Ororo felt something swell between them, but his stubborn refusal to let anything show put a stop to it. His head tilted just slightly to the side.
“Duck.”
At Bishop’s single word, Ororo raised a brow. Wolverine moved to her, forcing her head down and covering her with his body. Annoyed, Storm opened her mouth to protest, hating the way he continually treated her as though she were made of precious crystal.
A heartbeat later, she was happy he had done so. Glass and splintered wood flew with bullet speed through the otherwise empty foyer. Bishop had not so much as flinched while the X-Men covered one another, the spray of what had once been the foyer door washing over him almost negligently.
Shadowcat darted forward, griping the dark stranger and phasing him through the floor a beat before a laser sizzled through the air. Had he not been removed from that place, he would have taken the blast directly to the back.
When the girl and her charge reappeared, he rolled his eyes. “I needed that laser charge, Kitten.”
“Well,” Wolverine growled as his claws escaped their confinement. “I think our new friends have a few more for you.”
Bishop shrugged his arm from Kitty’s while raising his gun. “Whatever you do, don’t get dead.”
And then he was gone.
In a flurry of black leather and long, braided hair Bishop all but flew through the foyer’s decimated front door with the primeval grace of a predator. Electronic charges from his futuristic weaponry sang all around them as the X-Men scrambled to find their footing.
“Fan out!” Storm commanded her team. “Give Bishop cover, before he gets himself killed.”
They filed through the door together, moving as one sinuous unit. Storm leapt for the skies, the heavens crackling around her at their mistress’ command. She saw Beast and Wolverine flanking their unusual companion with Iceman, Shadowcat, and metallic Colossus bringing in the rear.
“Brotherhood!” Wolverine shouted as they met the remains of Magneto’s ill-fated army.
Storm launched herself higher, bringing down torrential rain and freezing winds upon the new battlefield. Mutants she could not recognize nor name flooded the expansive lawns of Xavier’s school, at least a dozen that she could see outright.
Her team fell on them with the force of a tsunami. They were well trained and used each other’s abilities flawlessly. Even Bishop fell into the formation, his laser weapon firing repeatedly.
She noticed, however, when several of them moved to counter him. Without pausing to think, Storm threw herself toward the ground, hovering just above Bishop’s head. A careless flick of her wrist, directing the screaming winds, tossed the mutant rebels across the lawns where they could not harm an X-Man.
To her surprise, Bishop glanced up at her almost causally. “That’s it?”
Suddenly irritated, Storm shook her head. “What did you expect? ‘Whirlwind from the heavens, engulf these misguided souls’?”
He had the audacity to smirk at her.
“It’s got a ring to it, Storm,” Wolverine tossed over his shoulder as he engaged a massive youth in hand-to-hand combat.
“So does “Holy bovine, Batman” but I don’t hear you shouting that!”
“Can we finish this later?” Iceman shouted from behind them. He drifted up toward Storm on his now patented iceslide. “What the hell do these guys want?”
All eyes seemed to turn to Bishop. Storm watched him grit his teeth, but his eyes were on her alone.
“They want the kid.” He said almost grudgingly. “Leech.”
“Jimmy,” Storm and Iceman said in unison.
She flipped her body backward, catching herself gracefully on the winds while Bobby rushed into the fray. Lightning tore the heavens apart, streaking onto the lawn as it attempted to strike at her opponents.
The other X-Men defended their home with the expertise borne of months in grueling training. She trusted them to take care of the home, of the children as well as she could. Launching herself further into the air, she brought down the chill of the Arctic, focusing the bitter cold on their advancing opponents.
From her position above, she was able to view the entire battle, calling out commands via the interlinked comm. badges each X-Man wore. She controlled the field from aloft, creating frozen hell conditions for their enemies. The X-Men were trained to fight in these conditions for a reason.
“Avalanche! Get that bitch out of the sky!”
At the unfamiliar call, Storm turned toward the sound. Violent shockwaves rippled the air, her winds crying out in something akin to pain at the unnatural invasion. She thrust her arms out to protect herself as the very air around her shivered.
~**~
Hearing the crude command from behind enemy lines, Logan immediately ceased fighting. Something in that tone made his blood run cold in his veins. They may not have gotten along like best friends, but she was his teammate.
He slammed an adamantium fist into the face of some young pup attempting to take him down, his eyes scanning the turbulent skies for signs of the X-Men’s leader. Iceman and Colossus were taking down a duo of their own. Shadowcat was playing Ultimate Hide and Seek with several others too stupid to realize they had a snowball’s chance in hell at actually catching her.
Angel swooped in from whatever rock he’d been hiding under, collecting an opponent and dropping him sharply into the frigid lake. Beast grabbed the boy’s hand, hitching a ride across enemy lines where his rough, animalistic fighting style quickly broke their lines. Their bastardized version of a Fastball Special worked as flawlessly here as it did in the Danger Room.
What he could not find, however, was Storm or Bishop.
“WOLVERINE!”
At the younger mutant’s fateful call, Logan whipped around in time to see Storm freefalling from the sky.
“STORM!”
His cry rent the night, pausing most of the action as he tore across the sopping earth. He knew, before he started moving, that he would be too late to reach her. Her seemingly fragile form slammed into the rain-soaked earth, muddying her snow-white hair as she sank into the squashy grass.
Screaming with preternatural rage, Wolverine cut down anything in his path, his eyes focused on nothing but the frail form lying still in the thick mud. Someone called his name; a laser blast singed his shoulder. None of it mattered.
When he reached the unmoving body of Storm, he retracted his lethal claws and sank to his knees. Heedless to any injuries she might have sustained, he gathered her into his arms, shaking her none too gently.
“Wake up, woman,” he demanded as the X-Men closed in around them. “Come on, darlin’.”
“How is she?” Angel questioned as he hovered above.
Wolverine failed to respond as he brushed the dirty white locks from her already bruising face. Her flesh was cold under his fingers, body still lifeless in his arms. He leaned down, placing his ear over her mouth to listen for breathing.
“I hope,” came a raspy voice from the semi-comatose woman. “Someone hit that little bastard.”
“He’s down,” said Kitty with a menacing snarl. “For a week or two.”
Relief flooded Wolverine’s system. He stood, cradling her protectively to his chest. She melted in his arms, allowing him to carry her back toward the mansion. The others would clean up the mess. He would talk to Bishop about this entire thing later.
For now, he had to take care of their resident weather witch.
~**~
Beast watched Wolverine carry Storm back into the mansion. She would require medical attention, to be certain, but something else weighed heavily on his mind. His eyes turned from the limp woman and her knight protector to the lone wolf standing in the wake of battle.
The battle had been swift, the enemy taken by surprise by the X-Men’s heightened state of readiness. Had Bishop not warned them, it could have ended far worse than it had.
Demoralized, the Brotherhood fled, carrying their wounded as fast as they could from the hallowed ground of Xavier’s School. Beast watched them leave, quietly posting three X-Men on watch until they were certain the coast was clear to bring the children out of the lower levels. Jimmy was safe, for now. Ororo had correctly assumed that someone would come for him. Henry doubted this would be the last attempt on the boy’s life.
All of this was pushed to the side as he came to stand beside the stoic Bishop. Though he did not know if he believed the man’s claims of knowledge from the future, he did feel a strange kinship with him. He reminded Beast of someone, though whom was elusive.
There was, however, the interesting development Beast had noticed during Storm’s dreadful fall. Bishop had halted in his tracks, horror overcoming the usually emotionless features. Beast had paused to take in this strange development and noticed something even more out of place.
For several seconds during that deadly plummet, Bishop had faded. It reminded the furry blue mutant of Shadowcat’s unique phasing ability. Disquiet passed over Hank’s heart as Bishop stared at his own fading form. Something more was happening here. Bishop was not disclosing all of the important information.
Yet, seconds later, the man snapped back into full focus. He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Beast decided he was going to get to the bottom of this.
“Bishop?” He questioned, drawing the man’s attention.
“What?” The younger man replied testily.
“Would you like to explain that state of flux a few moments past?”
Bishop turned unfathomable eyes to the mutant scientist. “You already know the answer, Beast.”
The indigo man frowned, glancing toward the sky as though he expected the knowledge to fall into his lap. It was a futile gesture, he believed, but a wholly human one.
Bishop had gone into temporal flux as something was changed in the course of history. Had the Brotherhood succeeded this day? Was Jimmy killed in his timeline? Why would that have affected the man?
He paused. Jimmy was not the key here, he realized. It was only at Storm’s injury that he began to fade. Beast inhaled sharply.
“Oh my stars and garters.”
“Yeah.” Bishop said quietly. “Welcome to my world.”
~**~
New York City, New York
Injured and severely lacking conviction, the Brotherhood drifted into their apartment building where they set up headquarters, several moaning as they nursed various wounds. Going up against the X-Men was risky, but the surprise attack should have given them something in the way of an advantage.
Instead, they seemed to be awaiting the attack, flooding their manicured lawns like a force of nature. They were even better trained than at the fiasco they referred to as Alcatraz. When the Phoenix and Magneto had been destroyed, the Brotherhood banded together.
“What happened?”
Their leader came from the rickety staircase, surveying his mutant fighters with a swift glance. Arclight glared at him, laying the unconscious Avalanche on the tattered sofa. He was going to be out for a while and having such a powerful ally down for the count always got her panties in a bunch.
“They were waiting for us.”
“Impossible.” He countered her, gray-blue eyes afire with conviction.
“Yeah?” Arclight shot back. “They were all in uniform, damn it. Avalanche almost died!”
“Perhaps you should be more selective of your lovers, my dear, if he is to be beaten by these uncouth whelps.”
She glared at him, coming across the room to stand toe to toe, ignoring the shocked murmuring of the mutants surrounding them. Since Callisto’s untimely death at the hands of that weather bitch, it was no secret that Arclight had an ulterior motive. She wanted Storm’s blood, at any cost, for taking her friend.
“They were expecting us,” she said slowly, menacingly. “Someone told them.”
“Only those that went on the mission were given prior knowledge,” he responded, looking around carefully. “Psylocke?”
The Asian beauty moved from behind their leader, her long violet hair slung over one slender shoulder. She looked through the entire team, letting her mind wash over each and every one of them. She delved inside, stealing secrets and discovering lies until no one could hide any longer.
“It was no one here,” the clipped British accent sounded odd from her olive lips. “They are loyal to you, to the Cause.”
“Good,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back.
“There is someone new at the school, though,” she continued. “A dark man with a tattoo above his eye.”
“Yes,” Arclight cut in. “Bishop by name.”
“Bishop?” He shook his head, pondering this new development. “I don’t recall that name.”
“We should investigate. Maybe he’s some kind of psychic that predicted the attack.” Arclight sighed, rubbing her temples with the fingertips of one hand.
“Yes, do so,” their leader commanded. “I want to know everything there is to know about this Bishop.”
“Yes, sir.”
The reconnaissance team split from the main body immediately, fading from the room as though they had never been there at all. Arclight watched their leader smile knowingly, fondly at his beloved disciples.
“You did well, in the face of such a foe.”
“Thank you, Magneto,” Arclight replied with a small smile.
He nodded to them, reaching out to touch Psylocke’s plump cheek as though stroking a beloved feline. The girl preened into the touch as Magneto’s mutation began to hum. He brought several vials to his hands via the metallic bands sealing the thick fluid inside. The mutant held the fragile glass up to the light, a slow, sinister smile curving his aging mouth.
“When the time comes,” he announced softly. “We will be ready for them.”
~**~
The not too distant future…
The child woke in the dead of night, panting and sweating as he ran from the dreams that threatened to consume him. He kicked his blankets off, taking his beloved, ratty teddy bear in his arms and popping his thumb into his mouth.
Mother and Father were speaking in low tones in the next room, comforting him with their mere presence. He tiptoed out of his room and down the hall. Neither of the questioned his wakeful state as he climbed eagerly into Mother’s lap.
Father reached over to touch his head in that paternal familiarity as Mother continued speaking.
“It has begun, then?” She asked of Father softly, her thumb idly stroking Lucas’ chubby cheek lovingly.
He leaned into her touch, letting it carry away all of his worries and the remnants of his terrible dreams. At least here, with them holding him, nothing was too horrible that it couldn’t be overcome. His parents were superheroes, after all.
“Yeah, it’s startin’,” Father replied to Mother. “I want you two to head for Scotland.”
“No…” Mother began.
“Hole up at Muir Island, at least until the worst is over. Moira and Sean can protect you.”
“And who, tough guy, is going to protect you?”
Lucas sucked more steadily on the digit between his lips. Were they going away? Had the bad men come to take them? Father always said if the bad men came, they might get separated. But he shouldn’t worry, Father said, he would always find them. No matter what.
Still…he didn’t want to leave Father or Mother.
“I don’t need protectin’.” Father told Mother. “You need to get Luke out of here. He’s our job right now.”
“You think it’s best for us to abandon his father?”
“Watch what you’re saying!” He snapped, indicating to Lucas’ half-asleep form in Mother’s arms.
“I am not leaving you here,” Mother continued, cuddling her son closer. “We will send our child to Moira. He will be safe there.”
“No.” Lucas whimpered, clinging to Mother. “Don’t send me away, Mother.”
“Jesus, you’re scaring him.” Father reached over, lifting the little one into the safety of his arms. He allowed Lucas to settle there. The boy inhaled the scent of his father, falling back into an easy half-sleep at the comforting scent.
Nothing would get by Father. He could keep them all together.
“I am not leaving you here,” Mother said again. “We will stay together, as a family.”
Lucas nodded his agreement emphatically. Father shushed him gently.
“It won’t be easy. This war’s been a long time brewin’.”
“What choice do we have?”
Silence.
Lucas looked between Mother and Father as their eyes met above him. There was love in that uncompromising stare, something that screamed forever into the face of time and Fate. They reached across the space separating them in the small room, their skin glowing in the dying firelight as their hands entwined.
“Together,” Father agreed. “Like always.”
