ULTIMATE X-MEN: ETERNITY

Issue #1: "Half a Dozen of Another..."

Rated PG-13 for violence and language

by RJB

----

DISCLAIMER: The X-Men are a copyright of Marvel Comics. I don't own them, but this is only non-profit fan fiction. No money is involved and no infringement is intended.

AUTHOR'S NOTE for NEW READERS: This is an "Ultimate X-Men" style story based on the idea that the Scarlet Witch accidentally screwed up some other timelines besides 616 in the House of M event. Just another exercise in how things might have worked out differently for the team, if the world had been slightly different. That's all you need to know; you can go ahead and skip right to the story now. Thanks for reading!

AUTHOR'S NOTE for PAST ETERNITY READERS: Between two and three years ago, I wrote an (extremely!) lengthy X-Men fan fiction series. Five of them, in fact, using almost every X-Men character of note. I churned out four books worth of material; I was maybe a little obsessed with writing it. Ultimately, I couldn't keep up that pace. Life intervened, and I went on to other things.

But I had fun writing it. I think the first arc of stories was pretty successful, and when I started re-reading, I was powerfully tempted to complete the second arc, which I left unfinished. But that's a lot of work, and my take on the characters is now three years out of date.

Meanwhile, I still wanted to write some X-Men fanfic. So instead of jumping back into five series, I thought I'd start with just one. This time, I'd build my X-Men from the ground up, Ultimate-style, and see whether I could take them in an interesting direction.

If you want a plot-based reason for this, recall a line from the first chapter of Uncanny X-Men Eternity: The Scarlet Witch didn't defeat the Phoenix. The Phoenix didn't defeat the Scarlet Witch. They... compromised, on a Multiversal scale, and half a dozen realities would never be the same again.

Half a dozen realities. But there were only five universes involved in the original Eternity series.

Consider this the sixth...

-----

Germany, 1926
Alternate Reality #170

A woman didn't have a baby today.

Her name was Eisenhardt, and she was already destined for a difficult life. Nearly two decades hence, she and her family will be among the victims of the cruelest crime in human history; she will be trampled by the mad ambitions of fascist ideologues, who in turn are destined to drag the whole world into fire. An unhappy fate for Mrs. Eisenhardt, and tragic, if relatively anonymous.

Her son would have been another matter. His name would have been Max, but he would have been better known as Erik Lehnsherr, or as Magnus, or perhaps even the Master of Magnetism. As the multiplicity of names suggests, he would be anything but anonymous.

Had he ever existed. In this world, at this time, he does not.

In other times, more familiar realities, Max Eisenhardt would trade blows with the greatest heroes and most powerful villains in the world; as one of the world's first and most powerful mutants, he would become a symbol to Homo sapiens superior, venerated by an entire race, feared by the world at large. He would be a legend in his own time, too big to be destroyed by any hero, by any battle, by anything short of the Universe itself.

In this reality, that's precisely what occurred. A stray probability wave, ironically generated by his own alternate-reality daughter in what will come to be known as the House of M, skipped the gulf between realities and traveled the length of the Multiverse, seeking out its own. It found him still in the womb, nearly a century past in an reality designed number 170, and it struck with all the intangible force of Destiny.

On the Earth of 170, on her knees beside a shallow grave underneath an endless gray sky, Mrs. Eisenhardt knows none of this. She only knows her son is dead. Strong and healthy throughout the pregnancy, he is unexpectedly stillborn, and she weeps for him. She mourns the loss of one, small blessing that would have lightened her load in an unforgiving Universe. She wonders why this must have happened, something so arbitrarily unfair. The man beside her-- Max's father, more stoic than his wife but no less heartbroken-- has no answers for her.

What neither of them knows, could possibly know, is that the loss of their son is more than a family tragedy. More, even, than the loss of a single promising life. It is, quite literally, the hinge on which will swing the fate of the world. With no Max Eisenhardt in the world-- no Magneto-- billions of lives will never be the same. One life in particular.

Half a world away, Charles Xavier is yet to be born. His fate, so intimately bound with that of his old friend and arch-nemesis, is now rewritten. Which begs a series of questions, the kind of dead-end hypothetical questions he might have spent hours contemplating in another life, chasing answers around a philosophical cul-de-sac over a spirited game of chess with the departed Max Eisenhardt:

What becomes of a hero who is not called upon to perform heroic deeds? How can a man inspire others if he is never inspired himself? Is there such a thing as an inherently great man, or only a man who surmounts the greatest of challenges?

But you don't need these questions posed to you by some faceless narrator. It's time we let the man in question speak for himself. You'll find him in his classroom, as ever, and class is in session...

Now
Martin Van Buren High School
Westchester County, New York

Charles Xavier frowned out across a sea of faces, most of them bored, and wondered what sort of potential they might have in the hands of a really good teacher. He tried-- Heaven knew he tried-- but he could never seem to instill in them the sort of passion for learning he'd had in his youth.

A boy at the back of the classroom was snoring; at least three others were dozing off. The class as a whole radiated a sense of crushing boredom, only faintly alleviated by the steady ticking of the clock toward 3:00. He would have liked to blame it on his being a substitute teacher-- a professor of science filling in for the recently-departed history teacher-- but Xavier knew his own classes were seldom any livelier.

Xavier ran both hands across his clean-shaven skull and straightened his rumpled suit. Then he paced to the center of the room and seized a piece of chalk. Hoping to get a reaction, he scrawled on the blackboard in large, flowing letters: "DESTINY." He underlined it several times.

"Destiny," he said aloud. "That's what we're here to talk about today."

A girl in the front row raised her hand. "Um, okay, but Mrs. Schultz wanted us to cover Chapters 8 & 9 on the Civil War..."

"Yes, Tiffany, but this concerns the subject." Xavier tried on a smile; it didn't fit. "History is destiny, children. A Civil War general said: 'In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something remains.' Who can tell me what that means?"

Nobody raised their hand; Xavier suppressed a groan, all but begging one of them to care enough to at least attempt an answer. Finally a boy near the center of the classroom put him out of his misery. Xavier recognized him as an honor student, but this was the first time he'd had him in his class.

"Yes, Mister... Alleyne? I'm sorry, I don't know your first name."

"David." The boy stood, somewhat awkwardly, then plunged into the question. "Heroes. It's... well, I think it's about heroes."

Several of the other students sneered at him, all but trumpeting the word NERD. But Xavier smiled, hoping to encourage the boy.

"How so?"

"Well, he means there's something lasting about-- you know, the choices we make. And if we make the right ones-- if we act like heroes-- that makes us, you know. Immortal."

David Alleyne's peers continued to glower at him, but Xavier could have wept. Finally! A breakthrough of sorts.

"Indeed," he said. "But do we ever really have a choice?"

"Of course we do." David frowned. "Why wouldn't we?"

Xavier gestured at the blackboard, building enthusiasm as he continued his pacing. "Because of history. We have the illusion of choice, yes, but actually everything we do is dictated by a series of past events. You turn left instead of right, and that determines what you will experience today. But in fact your choice was determined by a series of past experiences-- memories-- which in turn were dictated by your last change of direction, and so on down the line. I daresay if all of your experiences didn't include threats from your parents, none of you would have shown up for class today."

That got him a laugh-- a mild one-- but the subject matter drifted straight over their heads, as Xavier found it often did. He just didn't seem to have the knack for modulating his big ideas to fit the average high-school student's brain. But David Alleyne, whose brain was better than average, seemed to follow him.

"You're saying it's all inevitable. Like-- with the Civil War-- Lincoln couldn't have chosen to let the South secede, or done anything to end the war sooner. Or later, for that matter. He could only do what his specific experiences prepared him for."

"Exactly!" said Xavier, all but hopping up and down. Then, trying to bring it back around for the general audience, he said, "That's why all those time-travel stories you see in movies are so much nonsense. There are no alternate futures. There are no great deeds. There are no heroes. There are only people who do what they must do, as determined by fixed patterns of nature and nurture. In other words--"

He tapped the word "DESTINY" several times and studied the students' reaction. Most of them were blank. Even David looked doubtful. Xavier sighed.

A girl in the back raised her hand. "Is this going to be on the test? It's not gonna be, like, an essay question, is it?"

"Mrs. Schultz's tests are multiple-choice," said another teen approvingly.

The bell sounded at that moment, saving Xavier the necessity of replying to that. The students were gone before he could remind them of the homework assignment, and he didn't care. He collapsed behind his desk, defeated for another day.

Presently he felt a presence hovering over him. It was young Mr. Alleyne. Xavier was grateful enough for his effort to force a smile.

"May I help you, David?"

"I think you're wrong," the boy said. "About destiny, I mean. Especially about heroes."

"I'm not saying there aren't people who act admirably. The question is whether--"

"Whether they've got any say in the matter." David nodded. "I understood you. But, I mean... look at Captain America. The Fantastic Four. Iron Man. Everybody from the Age of Marvels. They had a choice, and they chose to do the right thing."

Xavier laughed. "A brief societal flirtation with vigilantism does not amount to a triumph of the human spirit."

"I still think you're wrong," David pressed. "C'mon, Professor... don't you ever think you could have been something besides what you are?"

The professor tried a wan little smile. "Not for a long time, my boy."

The look on David's face said he still wanted to argue. Another glance at the clock convinced him not to bother. Genius or not, David Alleyne was still a high school student; why stand around arguing with an old fossil at 3:00 on a Friday afternoon? He nodded to the professor, turned, and bolted out the door.

Xavier remained in his chair for a long time while the students filed out. When the last of them was gone, he reached into the bottom drawer of his desk, wrapping his fingers around a flask...

"It's a little early in the afternoon, isn't it?" said a female voice.

Xavier looked up sharply; a frail older woman stood in the doorway. She radiated calm and even a certain amusement, but that wasn't what bothered Xavier. Her dark glasses at cane concerned him more-- the woman was apparently quite blind.

"How did you...?"

"Well, as you say, some things are inevitable." The woman beamed. "Professor Charles Xavier, my name is Irene Adler."

"Are you the new history teacher?"

"In a manner of speaking." She took a few halting paces into the room, until she stood directly in front of the scrawled word on the blackboard: Destiny. "I think there are one or two things we can learn from each other."

"Such as?"

"Oh, come, Charles." The old woman's face crinkled to a beatific grin. "I'd be happy to tell you what I'm thinking... but wouldn't it be simpler if you told me?"

Xavier stared at the woman blankly, frozen in shock. All his theoretical concerns vanished from his mind, replaced by a single, horrified question. And that question was:

How can she possibly know?

-----

The Humvee rolls to a halt in a mountain pass outside Kabul, and Scott Summers steps out, shading his eyes for a look at the horizon. The sunlight burns them-- he's been having a hell of a time with the light in this part of the world. He sighs and slips on a pair of tinted sunglasses; he's taken to wearing them anytime he's outside.

Scott glances down at himself, takes in the dirty camouflage uniform and the worn-down boots. Would have been nice to have some proper body armor, but even a major in the United States Army made do with what he could scavenge in the post-9/11 world.

"Well, hell, sir," says a voice from inside the Humvee. Corporal Guthrie, his driver. The blond youth sticks his head out the door and shakes a crumpled-up map in his fist. "I think we're good an' lost this time."

Scott sighs. "Not your fault, Corporal. I ordered you off the main road. Can't get anything on the radio?"

"No, sir. Just static. Maybe if we get past them hills..."

Scott looks out at the jagged shapes on the horizon. It's hard to see; a swirl of dust begins to obscure his vision. "Maybe. While we're asking for things, I'd like the wind to die down."

Very slowly, Guthrie's hangdog face assumes a puzzled expression. "Sir? There ain't no wind."

Scott blinks. It's very true. There's practically no breeze at all-- yet the dust is swirling around them. Then driving at him, assailing him like a tame sandstorm. He dives back into the Humvee for cover.

"...the hell?" he shouts over the sound of millions of grains of sand pounding into their windshield. "Guthrie! What do you make of--"

But he can't even get out the rest of his question, much less hear Guthrie's answer. The dust is inside the Humvee now, choking him, cutting into his skin...

"ArrrAAAGH!" Scott howls, clawing at his eyes. He rips the glasses off. For a second, he thinks he's literally seeing red...

SKRAAAAAK!!! The windshield blows out-- not in, from the dust. Out, propelled by some force. The dust seems to... recoil, almost as though he's hurt it. As though it's alive. But Scott hardly notices-- his eyes burn like they're on fire. He squeezes them shut...

"Guthrie!"

But he never hears the answer. His head is pounding. Scott jerks his head back and tries to open his eyes-- the top of the Humvee disintegrates as through blown apart. The pain is incredible--

-----

Scott Summers awoke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in his seat. He found himself in the passenger seat of a black sedan, with a beautiful brunette at the wheel. It took him a moment to remember where he was. His head was pounding, as it often did when he dreamed, and his eyes burned almost as badly as they had when he first came home from the war...

Washington, DC

The brunette, who happened to be Special Agent Jessica Drew, glanced in Scott's direction. "You alright?"

"Yes... fine. It's my eyes again, that's all."

"You got those special glasses the Doc wanted you to wear?"

Scott nodded blearily and fished through his jacket pocket. As far as his partner knew, the red-tinted glasses were simply to help him with his headaches. Scott didn't see any reason she needed to know about their other function, and after a while, his eyes did begin to feel better. He left them on, just to be safe.

Ahead of them, the J. Edgar Hoover building, headquarters of the FBI, had just come into view. Jessica eased them out of traffic. When she'd parked, she frowned at Scott. He peered back at her through a red haze.

"Were you dreaming about Afghanistan again? Or Iraq?"

"Doesn't matter," Scott said. "They're both in the past."

"Hey." Jessica reached out to him. "I'm here if you need to talk."

"Thank you," Scott said, but he pulled his hand away at the first opportunity.

He'd never had any trouble appealing to women, Scott Summers; they all wanted to break through his brooding shell, and lately Jessica had been dropping hints that she'd be interested in more than a professional relationship. But Scott's personal life was... surprisingly complicated, and he knew he'd have to find a way to keep her at arm's length without explaining why.

They climbed out of the sedan and flashed their ID at the front door. The two agents took an elevator up several floors, while Scott tried to think of small talk to distract from the awkward moment in the car. It would have been easier if he didn't suck at small talk.

"Soooo... how about those..."

"Don't."

"Okay."

They rode the rest of the way in silence, and emerged on an upper floor bustling with agents and functionaries. Life at the Bureau was many things, but it was rarely boring. Scott looked around for the office number they'd been given-- and found it over to the right, with a huge, bald black man standing framed in its doorway. Next to him, another man in an expensive suit, tall and pale and cold.

"Looks like fun," Jessica muttered.

Scott removed his glasses, wincing at the fluorescent lights, and aimed for the two men.

"Special Agent Summers?" said the bald man, when they arrived. "I'm Assistant Director Lucas Bishop. This is Doctor Milbury."

"Sir. Doctor." Scott shook the bald man's hand, but something in the doctor's eye made him decline. "This is my partner--"

"Who is not invited," said the doctor, with a patronizing smile.

Scott frowned. "But-- she's my--"

"Yes, I'm sorry for calling you in, Agent Drew." A.D. Bishop glanced sideways at the doctor-- Scott got the impression there was no love lost between them. "I'm afraid Dr. Milbury's requirements were somewhat... unexpected."

"I don't understand," Scott said.

"Scott, it's okay. I'll get myself a cup of coffee."

Jessica glared at the two men for another moment, then took a breath and marched in the other direction. A.D. Bishop swept an over-sized arm toward the door.

"Step into my office, Agent. Quickly, if you don't mind. I'm a little out of time this morning."

Scott thought that was an odd way of putting it, but he followed Bishop into the office, while Dr. Milbury closed the door behind them. Scott frowned, thinking of something the A.D. had just said.

"'Dr. Milbury's requirements?'"

Bishop nodded. "The doctor is a profiler, assisting the Bureau on a... difficult case. We'd like to bring you in, Agent Summers. In fact, we would like you all the way inside."

"Undercover?" Scott asked, and Bishop nodded.

"First things first, if you please." Milbury paced into the room, giving Scott a look that was half smug smile and half 'look at that disgusting insect I've got under glass.' "You are Scott Summers of Anchorage, Alaska? Brother of Alex, son of Major Christopher Summers?"

"That's right. But he's a brigadier general, retired."

"And where is your father now?"

Scott blinked. "Back in Alaska with my mother. Where else--"

"Really. That's interesting. No... strange events in your childhood?"

"Well, I was abducted by aliens once, but I assume that happens to everybody." Scott turned to A.D. Bishop in irritation. "Look, what is this about?"

Bishop shrugged. "Bear with us, Agent Summers. This won't take long."

Scott sighed. He'd always been a patient man, almost freakishly so. His ex-wife used to taunt him about his preternatural reserve. Now, though, this questioning was starting to give him a headache. He didn't think either the Assistant Director or the doctor would like him when he had a headache. His fingers groped unconsciously toward the glasses in his pocket...

"Just to be clear," Dr. Milbury said, "you were never actually abducted by aliens, Agent Summers?"

"Of course not. Why would you have to ask?"

But Dr. Milbury was clucking to himself, only half-listening. "No abduction event, no cranial trauma. That explains a great many things. Have you any... visual impairments? Eye problems of any kind?"

Scott froze in his chair. Suddenly he was afraid he knew exactly what this interview was about. He wondered if they were planning to kick him out of the Bureau or simply arrest him.

"Eye drops," he said, maddeningly calm on the outside. "I have dry eyes something terrible. And I'm colorblind."

"I'm sure you are." Grinning like a court jester on speed, Dr. Milbury played his trump card: He removed a manila folder marked 'Top Secret' from his jacket and slapped it on the table.

"How did you get that?" Scott snapped. He reached for the folder, but Bishop stayed his hand.

"Now, let's talk about Afghanistan, Agent Summers," the doctor said. "Let's talk particularly about the testimony of a Corporal Samuel Guthrie, your driver in the summer of 2002, who witnessed... an unusual display?"

Scott drew back into himself-- he was an expert at that-- and resigned himself to being caught in the act. His hands folded together so tightly, the knuckles turned white. "What do you want me to say?"

Dr. Milbury smiled at him, not unkindly. "You don't have to say anything, Agent Summers. In fact, I'm going to tell you something, something you may have waited all your life to hear. I'm going to tell you what you are... and that you're not alone."

----

Irene Adler sat down opposite Charles Xavier's desk in his cramped office, sipping a cup of weak tea he'd hastily brewed-- anything to buy himself time to think, to reason a way out of this threat. He hadn't blanked a mind in years; his more delicate telepathic skills had all but withered from lack of use. He didn't think he could remove specific memories anymore; was he frightened enough of Irene Adler's knowledge to inflict wholesale amnesia? Even to destroy her brain function entirely?

No, Xavier decided. No, that I cannot do. If she has found me out, if I am to be studied and dissected, so be it. I will not be a monster like...

"I wonder if you recall a mutual friend of ours from Egypt." Irene Adler's little smile never wavered. "A man named Amahl Farouk?"

Xavier sat down at the desk and sighed, wishing he could look her in the eye. "That was... long ago."

"You don't have to tell me about long ago, young man. You defeated him, Charles. You were quite the adventurer in your youth."

Xavier closed his eyes. The images came, unbidden, the ones he'd worked so hard to block out. Cain and Moira and the Shadow King. Israel and HYDRA and... and Gabrielle.

He swallowed hard. "The world was different then. I thought I was... special."

"Special, like the Fantastic Four? Like Captain America? You were a man with a destiny." Irene Adler put down her cup and stared straight at him, blind or not. "That's something I can appreciate."

"Pointless heroics," Xavier said.

"Yet you teach your students not to believe in heroics. Why is that, Charles? Why are you so insistent? Is it because you desperately desire to convince yourself it had to be this way?"

Xavier frowned. Irene Adler was beginning to annoy him, not least because she hit uncomfortably close to the mark. "The world doesn't change, Miss Adler. Not even the most powerful mind can change it."

"Certainly not if it doesn't try." Adler's lip twisted. "I'm familiar with your early papers, Charles. They were brilliant, the later ones decidedly less so. It's almost as though you were trying to discredit yourself. To escape notice, perhaps?"

He winced as though stung. "You don't understand. You don't know what happened. There was a woman..."

"Gabrielle Heller. Yes, I know she died." The old woman's grin turned in a second, suddenly predatory. She jabbed a finger at him. "That never would have stopped the old Charles Xavier. He would have been saddened by her death, but all the more determined to succeed. She wasn't your problem. Your problem, boy, is: You were never pushed. There was a man who would have done it. Sometimes I can almost see his face, but..."

Xavier rose from his chair in a rush, tired of this game. "It has been a long day, Miss Adler. I will thank you to leave me in peace. If you cannot do so willingly, I assure you, there are ways of--"

Adler laughed. "Do you even remember those ways? The world needed you, Charles. Your brilliance. Surely you of all people must realize how discoveries feed off each other. We stand on the shoulders of predecessors and colleagues to reach the stars. Remove a giant of your intellectual stature, and the whole structure crumbles."

Xavier stepped around his desk and seized the old woman's arm, mad enough to forcibly evict her. "You're talking nonsense."

"Your expertise was in genetics, but your influence spread far beyond that. Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Bruce Banner: Each brilliant in their own right, but without your own discoveries, they were just slightly on the wrong track, as you would have been without them. You were half-right, Charles: Destiny is all connected. It's a tapestry no one person can understand... not even me. But rip out a person, and the resulting hole is... catastrophic."

Xavier pulled Irene Adler to her feet. The mixed-up old woman didn't resist, consumed as she was with her thoughts. To Xavier, they sounded like gibberish:

"Charles Xavier is pulled into the hole. Stark and Richards follow within a few years, dismissed as quixotic fools. The Age of Marvels collapses. Gamma-ray experimentation is abandoned. A boy is not bitten by a radioactive spider. A scientist is never transformed by a test explosion. With fewer Gamma particles in the atmosphere, the rate of mutation slows. Alien races who would have been attracted to Earth by its wealth of super-beings never visit. Without their influence, scientific progress slows to a crawl, then a standstill.

"But it goes even further. No attack on Cape Citadel means no anti-mutant unrest. No Sentinels. But also no mutant-rights movement. No inspiration. The mutants who do emerge have no idea they are not alone. Heroes lead ordinary lives. Arch-villains become petty criminals. The world doesn't end without you, Charles. It simply turns... boring."

They were at the door now. Charles Xavier reached for the doorknob.

"Miss Adler, I am genuinely... sorry for you. I'm sure you believe all of this, but I assure you: You're wrong about me. You're wrong about the world. The things you describe... can't happen, and I must ask you to display some discretion in what you tell people about me."

Irene Adler shook herself back to the present from... whatever she'd been seeing. Her sigh mirrored Xavier's own. "Alright, Charles, if we must do this the hard way. If you won't believe what I tell you... then I'll simply have to show you."

She seized Xavier's arm in a grip almost unbelievably strong for her age. Xavier hadn't tried to penetrate someone's mental shields in decades, so he hadn't even realized Irene Adler had any in place... but they dropped suddenly, and his still-formidable telepathy was confronted with a just-as-powerful vision of the future.

He saw... a new world. Men and women with powers drawn from legend. Technology beyond anything he envisioned in his youth. Battles waged, lessons learned, threats beyond belief vanquished by the power of the human spirit he'd so casually derided. Himself, crippled, but... somehow stronger, all the same. An inspiration to an entire new race, and... to a group of young people. Taught by Xavier, dedicated to his dream. To the protection of all humanity, no matter how strange or different.

X-Men

Xavier came out of the vision with a gasp, shaking life a leaf. Irene Adler took his hand and squeezed, anchoring him back in the real world.

"You see, Charles?" she said. "And you always thought yourself a bad teacher. The truth is, you were out of your element. Your calling is to work with students who are more... gifted."

------

"You're saying I'm some kind of a... freak?"

"Genetic mutant," Dr. Milbury supplied helpfully.

"So, a freak."

"Essentially."

Scott Summers leaned back in his chair and studied the two men who had uncovered his secret, wondering if it was all some kind of joke. They didn't sound like they wanted to fire him, but if they were planning to blackmail him-- or dissect him-- they didn't seem to be in a hurry to do that, either. Assistant Director Bishop just glowered,utterly grim, while Dr. Milbury looked insufferably pleased.

Well, if they're not going to fire me...

Scott Summers took his badge from his pocket and slapped it on the desk. "I should probably just leave that here. I know the way out."

"Hold on," said Bishop. He reached into his desk for another file, filled to bursting with all manner of papers. "We didn't call you here just because of this. The Bureau has known of your... secret identity, would you say?... for some time. We've been holding this card until we needed to play it."

"And you need it now?"

Bishop opened the file, the first page of which seemed to be Scott's own personnel file. "You see, Agent Summers, you're not so special. You're not even the only mutant on the payroll. But you are the best one. Your performance at Quantico is already legendary, your record since then first-rate. Your military background gives you extensive experience with counter-terrorism protocols. That will be useful in this assignment."

Scott peered at the folder, interested despite himself. "What is the assignment?"

"Infiltrating a domestic terror cell based in New York."

"Fundamentalist?"

Bishop scoffed. "Not unless 'mutant supremacy' is now a religion. And if it is, we're probably screwed any which way."

Scott glanced sidelong at Dr. Milbury, who hadn't said anything since the subject changed from himself. The supposed consultant didn't seem to be paying much attention. Scott got the distinct impression his goals and Bishop's did not coincide. Milbury was interested in Scott personally, while the Assistant Director was all about doing business.

That suited Scott just fine. "What's this group call themselves?"

"The Brotherhood. Catchy, eh? We've assembled profiles on the principle suspects. Here's a good one..."

Bishop tossed a profile on the table: Several pages of analysis were paper-clipped to a grainy photo of a man in a trenchcoat, holding what looked like a wooden staff...

"Remy Lebeau, alias Gambit. Wanted in Louisiana for grand theft and racketeering. Likes to make things go boom."

While Scott flipped through the profile with interest, Bishop tossed down another. He did a double-take at a beautiful blonde in a posh outfit.

"Emma Frost. No known alias, but we've been calling her the Ice Queen. One-time heiress, wanted in five states for theft, embezzlement, the odd attempted murder, and various psi-crimes."

Scott blinked. "What's a psi--"

"Moving on," said Bishop, and he tossed down another.

If Emma Frost had made Scott do a double-take, this one made him want to have his eyes checked-- and, perhaps, his sanity. The photo was of a small man with a devlish appearance, deformed ears, and...

"Sorry," Scott said, "is he blue?"

"It's fur, maybe some form of hypertrichosis. That's Kurt Wagner, alias Nightcrawler. Wanted in Germany, in the U.S. illegally. He's got no record here, but he is a person of... extreme interest. Often spotted in the vicinity of Catholic churches."

"So he is a religious fundamentalist?"

"Hard to say. We've taken him into custody several times-- he can't exactly keep a low profile-- but he keeps escaping before we can question him. Seems able to disappear at will."

"Fun," said Scott. He flipped through Wagner's profile, and felt an unexpected surge of... well, pity, really. Kurt Wagner had strange yellow eyes and a strange appearance, true... but he didn't look angry or even dangerous. To Scott's eye, he just appeared sad. Maybe a little frightened, too. He tossed the folder aside with a sigh. "Who's next?"

Another photo, this one of a young woman in her early twenties, her face half-obscured by a mask of some kind.

"Katherine Pryde-- 'Kitty,' alias Shadowcat. Hacker with a list of computer crimes as long as your arm. Also committed a couple of assaults when she escaped from custody last time."

Scott quirked an eyebrow. "You can't hold onto her, either?"

"You'd be surprised." Bishop himself appeared neither surprised nor amused. "She's to be brought in undamaged or not at all. Her father is a man with influence."

"Alright." Scott frowned. "So far it's just a weird-ass ring of thieves. Who's so dangerous you need a freak..." He arched an eyebrow at Milbury, who nodded to him, all smiles. "A mutant to bring them in?"

"The last two are the most dangerous." Bishop flipped down another file-- a woman a few years older than Katherine Pryde, with a white streak in her hair. The A.D. stared at it for what seemed like a long time before he spoke-- Scott fancied his bass rumble sounded a little strange. "No ID on this one; just calls herself 'Rogue.' Multiple assaults, some theft, lots of property damage. A couple of her victims are still comatose. When they do come out of the coma, they're... not the same."

Scott frowned. "Meaning?'

"Would you believe she drains their brains?" Scott plainly did not believe it, and after a moment Bishop let that alone. "Be very careful with her; she's not to be approached lightly, and not to be hurt. I mean--" The A.D. corrected, sounding annoyed with himself. "Use extreme caution, that's all. We'd like to study her more closely."

"Alright," said Scott. "Who's the last bundle of trouble?"

When Bishop tossed the file down, Scott almost laughed. It was the hair, he decided. The man in the photo had the most unruly hair he'd ever seen-- it didn't seem to be any particular style, so much as a mop, totally uncontrollable. He was chomping a cigar, a filthy habit for a filthy-looking man. And--"

"What is he," Scott said, "five feet tall?"

"We estimate five-three. Don't underestimate him. That's James Howlett, alias James Logan, but we call him the Wolverine. He's... angry."

"He's killed at least 37 people that we know of," said Dr. Milbury, though not in a tone that suggested he thought this was a bad thing. "Heals wounds at a vastly accelerated rate. His genetic structure must be fascinating..."

"He's also got Special Forces training," Bishop said, "so don't engage him hand-to-hand unless you absolutely have to. Not that you could get close enough..."

Scott nodded along with the briefing. "Are those knives he's carrying?"

"You wish," Bishop snorted. "They're a part of him. Super-sharp metal daggers as long as his forearm, apparently retractable. He calls them his claws."

Claws or none, he was still a funny-looking little man. Scott flipped through his dossier; a lot of the information was sketchy. Something caught his eye, and he laughed.

"When you said special forces, I thought you meant SHIELD or Delta Force. 'Department H?' Those amateurs? You're sending me after a rogue Canadian!"

"I told you, don't get cocky. Logan's the best at what he does, just like you. Only what he does isn't very nice."

"What do you think I am," Scott asked, "a boy scout?"

Bishop smirked. Then he tossed the balance of the file to Scott. "Study up fast. The Brotherhood likes to stay mobile; we'd like to introduce you to them in New York, before they have a chance to carry through whatever they're planning. Our information says it could be big."

Scott winced, as no doubt he'd been meant to; the last thing anybody needed was another large-scale disaster in New York. So he'd track these people down, whatever his misgivings. But he couldn't help feeling he was missing something-- if these people were anything like him, and apparently they were more like him than anybody else in the world, fellow 'mutants' and all-- they might just be looking for a place to hide, to be accepted. Scott knew that feeling all too well, and he still didn't get that bad a vibe from any of them. Well, except Logan. He was sort of looking forward to testing himself against Logan.

"Alright," he said to A.D. Bishop. "When do I leave?"

"As soon as I've had time to run a few precautionary tests," Dr. Milbury interrupted smoothly.

"Tests?" Scott frowned at him. "What sort of tests?"

"Oh, genetic tests. To better understand your abilities. Maybe we can even control your headaches."

"You mean control my power. Control me." Scott jumped out of his chair. "No-- hell, no. I'll complete the mission, but I'm nobody's guinea pig."

"Really? That's unforunate for all of us."

Until that moment, Dr. Milbury had struck Scott as a harmless quack. He was oily, sure, and self-interested, but it had never struck Scott Summers' mind that the fellow might be dangerous. Now, though, something in the doctor's tone, the cast of his eye, the way he held himself when he called Scott's choice "unfortunate"... well, there was no word for it but sinister. Scott instinctively backed away from him.

"Now, calm down," said A.D. Bishop, gesturing for peace. "Let's all be reasonable about this. Agent Summers, you will submit to the testing."

"No, sir," Scott told him. "You can keep my badge. I'll walk right through that door."

"And abandon New York to the Brotherhood?"

Yes, Scott opened his mouth to say, sure. But when he did so, no sound came out, and he soon closed his mouth again. Everything he'd done as a soldier, as an agent of the law, everything his father ever taught him was to protect people. It wasn't so easy to walk away from that, even if he wanted to; if nothing else, he hesitated...

And Dr. Milbury jumped on that hesitation. "By the way, Agent Summers... how's your wife?"

Scott blinked. Aw, son of a... no wonder they didn't blackmail me before. They were saving that tactic for the good stuff.

"You must be mistaken, Doctor," he said, in a tone that wasn't nearly as calm as his last bluff. "I'm not married."

"You were." Milbury produced another file; how many did he have in that jacket, anyway? He tossed down an open folder on top of the others. This time the cover picture was of Scott himself... in Aruba... with his arm around a redheaded woman.

Scott glared at A.D. Bishop. The big man averted his eyes, an unspoken apology.

Dr. Milbury didn't sound sorry at all. "She was a strange one, your ex. I've got her psychiatric profile. Tell me, did she make you take out the garbage... or just move it to the curb by the power of her mind?"

Scott took a deep, shuddering breath and remembered it would not look good on his profile if he killed a highly-paid consultant. "My ex-wife was a paranoid schizophrenic with delusions. I do not appreciate the humor."

"I'm sorry; I only meant to say, that must have been very hard. No wonder you divorced. Funny thing, though... since you did, we haven't been able to find her anywhere. Now, why do you suppose that is?"

Scott nearly lost control. He fumbled for his glasses, nearly dropped them, and shoved them into place just before he started seeing red. Then he turned on Milbury and slammed the doctor against the nearest wall. Bishop didn't object.

"Listen carefully, Mister," he said, "if you ever use my wife against me again, you'll wish you'd taken on those freaks by yourself, because all six of them could not hurt you as badly as I will. Are we clear?"

"Nearly clear, Agent Summers." If his threat intimidated Dr. Milbury in the slightest, the tall man didn't show it. "I was only thinking, if you didn't want to submit to those tests yourself, you could always tell us where to find Jean Grey. I'm sure she'd fit the bill nicely."

------

Charles Xavier now sat on the opposite side of his desk, having neatly reversed roles with Irene Adler, and sipped from a cup of tea that shook in his trembling fingers. He cursed himself-- Have I really allowed myself to deteriorate to the point where I'm unable to deal with one little psychic vision?

Apparently he had.

Adler allowed him all the time he needed, smirking knowingly all the while. When she could no longer hear Xavier's teacup shaking, she seemed to know that was the time to jump in.

"It's overwhelming, isn't it?" she said. "To know you could have made such a difference, and failed? I'm sorry."

"I don't know that I'm sorry," Xavier told her. "It wasn't entirely a better world that I saw, Miss Adler. Alien civilizations conquering our cities every other week, criminals who were nothing less than walking weapons of mass destruction, mutants hunted down..."

"There's always a risk," Irene Adler said, "for the bold."

"I have not been bold in some time."

"Still, you are Charles Xavier, in any timeline. I guess you'll come to the right decision, and my guesses are... uncanny, they tell me."

"What am I deciding?" Xavier asked, at a loss.

"Whether to take what I'm offering you." Adler reached into her pocket for a card, which she pressed into Xavier's hand. Then she stood, leaning heavily on the desk and looking ancient as the tides. "Come into the city tomorrow. Come to that address. Come alone. You'll see what Destiny has in store for you."

Xavier stared at the card blankly. "The Baxter Building? Why should I?"

"Because, Charles, not all the terrible things you saw in the other Universe are absent from this one. Some of them are coming, whether you're ready or not." When she'd nearly reached the door, Irene Adler cocked her head as though listening to something. Soon enough, she nodded to herself. "Here comes one of them now."

Xavier started to get out of his chair, to ask what she was babbling on about, but suddenly it was made clear:

CRUNCH went his office door as it was converted to splinters by a single heavy blow. Debris exploding inward, showering the entire room-- except the exact spot where Irene Adler had chosen to position herself. And squeezing through the door, muscles straining until the very wall gave way to admit his considerable bulk...

"Well, hey there, Chuckie," said the enormous fellow with the metal helmet clutched under his arm. "It's Big Brother Cain. Hey, sorry I forgot to write ya, but I just punched my way outta SHIELD custody, an' boy are my arms tired..."

"Cain, I... now just a moment..."

"HAW! Who'm I kiddin'? My arms don't get tired! I'm th' JUGGERNAUT!"

Enraged by the sudden reappearance of the family menace, Xavier reached out and staggered his step-brother with a mindblast. It wasn't the sort of mental attack he could have made in his youth, though. It didn't put the Juggernaut down for the count, or even close.

Cain just chuckled. "Yeah, I heard you wasn't at yer best, Charlie. That's why I come in here like this, to see what ya got. Ain't much, is it?" He replaced his helmet on his head and fastened it. "'Member when I used to bounce yer oversized skull off the walls as a kid? Boy, those were the days!"

"Cain, if you're here to play some sort of game..."

"Matter a'fact, Charlie, I ain't even here for you. Yer kinda small potatoes for me, these days. The lady, on the other hand..." He swept out with his giant arms and grabbed Irene Adler, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of laundry. Advance knowledge or not, she was still an old blind woman; she couldn't have resisted, and did not even try.

Miss Adler! Xavier sent to her desperately, urgently. I don't know how to help you! What can I do?

Do, Charles? Even in the midst of her own abduction, Irene Adler's mind was uncommonly serene, as though she was merely scratching another item off her cosmic to-do list. My dear boy, you have no choice in what to do, remember? For you, playing the hero isn't just destiny... it's everything you are.

Thus encouraged, Xavier hurried forward, gathering his mental energies for... something, he wasn't sure what. He seized his stepbrother's arm and held on for dear life.

"Aw, beat it, Charlie! I'll settle up with you some other time!"

Cain barely even flicked his wrist, and Xavier went flying. He crashed into his desk, cracked his skull on something hard, and blacked out. After an indeterminate period dreaming about the things in Irene Adler's vision-- giant flying robots and monosyllabic green giants-- he awoke to find a commotion in the corridor, and his stepbrother and Adler both gone.

The card with the number of a suite at the Baxter Building was still in his pocket, however, so as world-saving careers went, at least Charles Xavier wouldn't have to start his all the way back on square one.

------

FBI Assistant Director Lucas Bishop stood on a dark corner in the middle of the night, utterly unconcerned by the crime and poverty that surrounded him. Even in the worst neighborhoods of Washington, DC, people weren't lining up to attack a man of his bulk and no-nonsense demeanor. Anyone who did, moreover, would get a rude surprise.

Less surprising, but just as rude, was the pint-sized fellow who came to stand on the corner beside Bishop. He was pasty-faced and skinny and generally resembled the runt of the litter; the two of them made a comical picture, waiting together.

They were silent at first, and then the smaller man noticed a gnat buzzing around his head; nothing unusual for a muggy Washington night. He goggled at it for a moment and then-- SLURP!-- a prehensile green tongue lashed out of his mouth to swallow it.

Bishop glowered at Mortimer Toynbee, whose friends-- practically nobody-- addressed as "Mort." Everyone else called him Toad.

"Must you do that? It's disgusting."

"Sorry, luv. Force of habit." Toad craned his neck at the big man. "Speaking of disgusting, how much longer yer gonner keep that shape? Bloke makes me nervous."

The gleam in Bishop's eye had a distinctly yellow tinge when he replied, "Ah, but it amuses me to take this form. Call it a joke on Summers; if he knew anything about the world as it should be, he'd know I don't exist yet. But he doesn't, so I win."

"Yeh," said the Toad. "But when do we get the prize?"

Bishop ignored the question; instead he held up his hand, flagging down a battered old van that had appeared on the far corner of the street. The ancient vehicle rolled forward.

A moment later, safely inside, the eyes glowed yellow again and Lucas Bishop became a lady named Raven, whose friends called her all sorts of names. Her enemies-- practically everyone-- went with Mystique.

"It will be soon now," she said, more to herself than to Toad. "It all depends on Xavier; and Irene, of course, but that's a given. Have he heard anything?"

A thin blond man glanced back from the driver's seat. He couldn't see them very well, so John Allerdyce-- the mutant Pyro-- made his own night-light with the help of a cigarette.

"Nothin' yet, boss lady. Don'tcher worry, though. What's the old whacker gonna do to her? Threaten her with a D-Minus in social studies?"

"Charles Xavier is always dangerous." As the van started picking up speed, Mystique leaned back in her seat and considered. "Part of me wishes we could do this without him."

"Be brilliant if it worked, though," said the Toad. "Charlie really thinks he's the one we need."

"Don't be too hard on him. Not everyone has Destiny on their side."

"Too right," said Pyro. He frowned at something on the dashboard. "There we go. That's her signal now."

"So it is. Dulles Airport, John, fast as you can. By morning we'll be in New York, and by this time tomorrow, Project Magnus will be underway." Mystique shifted back to her borrowed form, Lucas Bishop being a particularly apt choice to pronounce her final judgment.

"Gentlemen: The future awaits us..."

END

Next Issue: Cyclops vs. Wolverine-- and that's just for openers!