Authors (in order of posting): Eileen, Amicitia, InterNutter, Scribbler, Lyra Silvertongue, Kladyelf, Greg, Yodelbean, Yma.

Written between November 4 2002 and April 30 2003 on InterNutter's BB.

_Futures Tense_

The sky over Bayville Park was a perfect blue. There was nobody in the park at present (which turned out to be a good thing), but within a few hours, the benches would fill up with-

The clear blue sky suddenly crackled with electricity. There was a puff of smoke and ... a sound.

It was nothing as polite as a *bamf*. This was more of a *crunch*.

When the strange red smoke had cleared, the cause of the sound became apparent. One of the wrought benches had been totally and utterly crushed until it was nothing more than a small slab of warped and melted metal. Parts of it oozed into the grass, sizzling, like they'd come into contact with some incredible source of heat. However, others were just plain mangled, as if by a strong man, or even a car crusher.

A figure stood atop the mass. It was impossible that he could even get close, what with the heat radiating off it, but he stood, plain as day and twice as audacious.

If anybody could have seen him, they probably would've laughed. That is, until he ripped out their windpipe. He wore a long, all-encompassing catsuit of torn red fabric that left nothing to the imagination, and over it here and there were bits of armour obviously just for show, since there was no way they could've protected him in a fight. His feet were completely bare, which only made his perch extra-extraordinary.

However, none of this quite compared to the blue fur. He was covered in it from head to toe, and it clashed horribly with the long red hair, swept up and knotted into a ponytail with yet another piece of incongruous metal at the nape of his neck. His eyes, when he opened them, were a curious mix of pure green irises, devoid of pupils, set against glowing yellow instead of the usual white; and when he walked, he did so on digigrade legs that bounced with a fluid grace usually reserved for felines.

Elegantly, the figure descended and stepped onto the newly-cut grass. It burned and died beneath his feet, and he stroked his chin in thought.

This was where it would all happen?

It seemed such a boring setting. This little city, in their little country, in their little world. So petty. But still, who was he to argue?

Delicately, he picked his way through the shards of broken glass left over from a drunken brawl the night before and crested the hummock that overlooked both the rest of the park, and a good deal of the city beyond. Cars droned along the highway and the musical beeping of a traffic-jam somewhere over the horizon filtered through the morning air to his pointed ears. He twitched said ears, breaking into a grin that showed the hint of fangs. Something serpentine waved behind him, tipped with an oversized spade at least twice the size of his spread palm.

This place, then, was to be the scene. This was where those fools were going to play their theatre. It was an interesting, if mundane choice, but what the hell.

His smile widened a little at that. He'd been to Hell, and Hell hadn't been happy to see him[1]. People were rarely happy to see *him*. Now he was going to make sure Hell got to see him again.

His left ear twitched. There! He felt it. The faintest distortion as someone - or rather, several someones - exited the timestream in much the same way he had, if not with the same finesse. Concentrating, he could make out several trailing thoughts that accompanied their entrance.

_Uh-oh, misfire._

_Urgh, right in the middle of the toast-rack! My butt's gonna ache now._

_Wow, there he is. He looks so young._

_Who the hell are *they*?_

_ What the fu- _

_Ray! Language!_

_Jeez, are we gonna have some explaining to do. Couldn't she have got it right just this *once*?_

_Owie, owie, owie, my *tail*! Who even *drinks* coffee that hot?_

The red-clad figure slapped his tail down and banished the threads that travelled to him through the ether. He snarled a little, chasing them away. At once, the sky above him rumbled, and an unhealthy bloom of grey appeared in the erstwhile clear sky. It spread outwards, mirroring his expression.

So, they were here then. Fine. He knew of their plan, but he was prepared to wait. They couldn't stop him. They couldn't stop fate.

With a resounding screech that split the early morning atmosphere, he spread his arms wide and a burst of flames erupted behind him in the semblance of wings. These fiery extensions quickly enveloped the figure in soul-crushing heat, and he vanished again without a single soul having seen him.

_Time to play, children._

*

"I can't believe it," Scott Summers said, as he and his teammates sat down with another group of young people. "I mean, we're not even dating yet! So you won't be born for another ..."

"Twelve years," Ricky Summers said. He had Jean's red hair, and Scott's features.

"We came here," Margretha Wagner said, "from twenty-five years in the future."

"How?" Jean asked.

"Well, see, that's the funny thing ..."

"My fault," Margretha grinned sheepishly. "I jumped us here by mistake."

"Jumped?" Scott asked.

"You know how Dad teleports in space?" the young teenager inclined her head towards Kurt. "I teleport in time. In a way. Using a dimension parallel to his, but not to yours."

"I thought Darkforce was parallel to us," Kurt furrowed his brow.

"It is," Nicole Pryde explained.

Kitty looked extremely confused by the whole deal.

"When you get to the fourth dimension, Euclidian geometry goes down the drain," Margretha said. "Tesseracts and all that, you know."

There were two who hadn't spoken yet, both girls. One was tall, with long black hair and dark skin; the other was shorter, and blonde.

The dark one spoke first.

"It doesn't matter how we got here," she said. "We need to complete our mission."

"And what mission would that be?"

"We're gonna save the future," said Margretha.

The blonde spoke up. "In a couple of days, Principal Kelly is going to be attacked by a mutant," she said. "That event sparks a chain reaction that results in a mutant registry that classifies all mutants as weapons."

"In times of war," said Margretha, "we can be seized and used against whoever America's enemy is this week. I already lost one brother to a war. They didn't even care that his powers hadn't manifested. He was a mutant. Therefore he was a weapon."

"He was *eight*," said Ricky.

There was a moment of silence.

"Who attacked him?" said Spyke.

"Um," said the dark one. "That'd be *you*, Dad."

Nobody said anything for a long time.

Then Professor Xavier said, "I don't believe we've been properly introduced. Would you all mind going around and telling me a bit about yourselves?"

"I guess so," Margretha said. "Just so we all know where we're coming from. Should I start?"

The others all agreed she should.

"Okay. As you've probably guessed, my dad is Kurt, and my mom is ..."

"Waitaminute!"

Everyone looked up, and Evan spread his hands wide.

"You're seriously telling me that I'm gonna attack Principal *Kelly*. I mean, I seriously don't like the dude, but I'm not *that* stupid!"

The bunch of strange newcomers exchanged pointed glances, and the dark one who had claimed to be his daughter sighed as they focused on her. She swept long bangs out of her eyes, revealing eyelashes that were definitely too long for a normal person and curled all the way back on themselves - twice.

She seemed a little embarrassed. "Well, y'see, Dad - "

"Please don't call me that," Evan snapped, making her blanche. "We don't even know if you are who you say you are. Around here, I'm just plain Evan."

"Or Spyke," she corrected firmly. "You were given the codename not long after Ororo, or Auntie O, as you prefer to call her, brought you here from New York. Professor Xavier agreed to bust you out of jail and have all charges pinned on you as a scapegoat by the mutant Quicksilver rescinded if you agreed to join his Institute for Gifted Youngsters, and become a part of the X-Men." Her brown eyes raised. "That right?"

Evan's jaw dropped. "How did you.... But that's classified...."

"You told me yourself as soon as I was old enough to understand," she smiled wryly, "which was about a year ago in our time. As part of my mutant ability, my aging process has been sped up, both mentally and physically. At the moment, I'm actually only five years old, though my outward appearance says that I'm more twenty-something." She shrugged. "Go figure. My name's Victoria Daniels. *Not* Vicky!"

Kurt leaned in to his friend; "Sounds like she got a little of your stubbornness, eh mein Freund?"

Victoria looked around at the gathered X-Men. She couldn't really blame them for being suspicious. The remains of breakfast were still strewn about the long dining room table where she and the 'Neo X-Men' as they'd named themselves, had abruptly landed amongst them - literally. There was no doubt that they were mutants, but still, their story *did* sound more than a little far-fetched.

"You can have Jean and the Professor do scans of us to verify our stories if you want," she offered. "But can I at least finish what I was saying first?"

Charles nodded, and the rest of his charges followed suit.

"Da - Evan," she corrected herself, spotting his dark look. "You don't just attack Principal Kelly."

"What do I do then?"

For a moment there was silence. Then she said softly: "You kill him."

"*WHAT*?!" Evan blurted. "How in hell--? I mean - I don't *like* the guy, but I'm not gonna *kill* him!"

"You always said it was an accident," said his daughter. "You said you were trying to defend yourself against some thugs, but they never came forward and you refused to identify them and -- Principal Kelly was caught in the crossfire."

Another thick silence.

"No prob," Kurt announced. "This time around, Ev's gonna catch the stomach 'flu. If he's sick that day, he can't hurt *anyone*."

"We don't know if that would work," the blonde said. "I ran several different scenarios through the computer, and the one with the highest probability of you succeeding ... has you all staying home. For at least a week. The timeline tries to heal itself, make what was supposed to happen, happen. I'm Susan, by the way." She didn't give a last name.

"And how are we all supposed to stay out of school for a week?" Scott asked. "I've got an important test next Friday."

"They'll let you make it up," Susan said. "We'll tell them this place is under quarantine because of some weird mutant virus."

"Yeah, like they'll believe that," Evan said. "What--what would happen if I just left and never came back?"

Susan shook her head. "Not good. Not good at *all*. My probability sims all have that timeline ending in ones as bad or worse than our own. You can't leave. At least - not yet."

"'Cause if it isn't you," added Victoria, "it's Quicksilver."

"But we can stop him," Margretha smiled. "Easy peasy."

Everyone who knew Kurt shuddered at that phrase.

"Was?" said Kurt.

"Sorry, K-man," Evan said, rubbing off a psychosomatic chill. "Portent of doom."

"Same as you saying, like, 'watch this'," added Kitty.

"Or 'woo-hoo'," said Scott.

Kurt folded his arms and sulked.

"We have a plan," Margretha said. "I'd like to try it out in the Danger Room first, though. If it doesn't work, I can come up with a Plan B."

"If it doesn't work?" Evan said. "It better work! I'm not going down as a murderer!"

"Chill out, Dad, Mags knows what she's doing."

"Ja," said Mags. "I can feed all the probability math into the sim. We'll try everything we think of until we get a plan."

"I thought you already *had* a plan..." said Kurt.

"*Our* plan was to pop in at the last second and bowl Herr Kelly over as a gang of running teenagers."

"That was pretty much blown outta the water," said Victoria. "We missed."

"So now we gotta invent plan B," said Mags.

*

The new team was a bit disappointed by the size of the Danger Room.

"It's so *small*!" Ricky said. "I thought it'd be huge!"

"The computer stuff is way old," said Susan. "I don't know if I can work on this system."

"And I thought you were a technomage," huffed Mags. "This should be a piece of cake, ja?"

"Very old cake."

The team got into position.

Scott leaned close to Evan by the door. The original X-Men were hanging back, anxious about the consequences of letting a load of random mutants into their training facility, but at the same time curious as to what said mutants were up to.

"Um... what exactly are they planning on *doing*?" Scott asked. "There's not even a sim running."

"Why ask me?" Evan snapped, folding his arms and glaring heatedly at the back of Victoria's head. "*I'm* just a murderer."

Scott perceptively decided that standing next to Jean was less stressful. Better view too, though he never let her know about that part. Sometimes ruby-quartz was a very useful thing to have around.

To one side, Susan indicated to a portion of wall. Victoria stepped up to the plate and a few indistinguishable words passed between them, during which the blonde girl traced the outline of a square with her index finger.

Victoria nodded, and shovelled her companion aside. She stood for a moment with her hands outstretched, palms flat against the steel. After a few long seconds her hands began to glow, and the outline Susan had indicated followed suit.

The X-Men gaped as the wall, quite literally, melted. But only in the one square. It slid to the floor, revealing a network of wires and switches beneath that bleeped softly and gave the intermittent flash. The outer casing formed a viscous mush at the dark girl's feet, before solidifying once more into what looked like a clutch of sparkling rocks. Victoria picked one of the smaller chunks up, tossing it lightly from hand to hand.

Catching her father's teammates' collective eye, she turned and said, "I unmake manmade things. Send them back to their original, natural form. That's my mutant ability."

The team said nothing, and she stepped away to allow Susan access to the machine's innards she'd revealed.

"You know," commented Rogue from afar, "y'all could just go up to the control room to tinker with this thing. Be much easier than pokin' around in there."

From somewhere within the hole Susan snorted. "What, this old thing? Nope, I gotta go right into the works to figure this baby out. Even then I might not be able to - aha!" She pulled free, holding something small and important-looking. "So *this* is what one of these looks like. Huh, go figure. The way Dad described it, I thought it'd be a *lot* smaller."

"Uh, if we could get back to topic...." Margaretha nodded at the wires, knowing how absorbed her friend could become in anything save the job at hand, given the opportunity. Beside her, Nicole nodded agreement, but said nothing. It seemed that Kitty's daughter, unlike her mother, was the quiet type.

_Who would've guessed?_ Most of the X-Men thought to themselves.

Susan looked up, ponytail swinging. "What? Oh, yeah. Sorry." She pocketed what she'd been looking at and peered back into the hole. "I'm gonna need more tools to figure this baby out."

Logan grunted from the door. "Damn kid's not gettin' her mitts on my toolbox. I only just got it sorted from when Elf decided to play his little prank last week." He glared at Kurt, who held up his hands pseudo-innocently.

"Whaaaat?"

Susan shook her head. "No need, Mr. Wolverine, sir. I got everything I need right here."

"Where?" chorused the X-Men.

"Here." Susan closed her eyes and outstretched her hands with fingers splayed. A small gasp left her lips as thin slivers of silver burst from the tips and sped toward the waiting network. The metal wires wound their way in and through the Danger Room's inner belly, extending from the blonde's flesh like nothing they'd ever seen. Logan's claws came close, but somehow this merging of body and metal just seemed more natural, and the expression of bliss on Susan's face magnified this.

"Got it," she whispered at last, and when she opened her eyes those with sensitive enough eyesight goggled at the reams of glowing data that showed across the irises. It was like having a computer screen in each eyeball, and the numbers scrolled up and down as, somehow, the mutant girl managed to interface with the main control drive itself. "Now, if I can just reconfigure it to our needs...." She fell silent again, and the numbers continued to roll.

Next to Kitty, Kurt put a hand on her shoulder, which she didn't shuck off. "I don't think," he said with a mixture of wonder and foreboding, "we need to ask who Forge's relation is now, do you, Katzchen?"

"Nuh-uh," Kitty replied, not looking at him, so engrossed was she in the gruesome spectacle playing out before them. "So *that's* what she, like, meant by 'Technomage'."

When the preparations were finished, the future X-Men led the way.

"This is the best fit I have on what happened, based on available data," said Susan.

"Two security stills and witness reports," said Mags. "Very vague. She's a genius."

Holograms flickered into existence, and they were in a hall in Bayville High.

{Zwip!} "Justtryandstopme, Daniels!"

"Damnit, Pietro!" Bone spikes flew through the air.

Pietro ducked out of the way. Principal Kelly, just stepping around the wrong corner, didn't know what hit him until it was too late.

Blood poured out of his neck.

Pietro stared. He had blood on his face.

Evan screamed. "Noooooooo! OmyGod, *NO*!" He tried to staunch the blood, turned to Pietro. "Damnit! *Do* something!"

{Zwip!} Pietro was gone. He didn't come back.

"SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

"That *bloody* coward," Evan murmured. "He just freaked out..."

"Stress does different things to people, Evan," soothed Kurt. "You never know what you're going to do until it actually happens in front of you."

Evan boggled at him. "You had something like this happen to you?"

Kurt managed a smile. "Someone cut Stefan open with a knife. I threw up, then I got on with helping him."

"Eeewww..." said Evan.

"Then all we have to do," Scott said, "is to prevent this confrontation from happening. And you say we can't do it unless we all stay away?"

"It's hard to describe," Susan said. "Do you know anything about the laws of causality? Probability determinations?"

"Uh ... no."

"Well, I haven't got time to explain it. Let's just run the sim and then we'll take it from there, 'kay?"

Evan got into position. Whatever Pietro did to anger him, he'd keep his cool. He knew he could do it. Just yo' Mama the boy until he went nuts and left.

"Oooo, lookit Daniels," said the hologram. "Mr. I'm-so-superior. HA! You couldn't catch a fly if *Toad* spit it up."

"Bite me," said Evan. "You know you want to."

Pietro boggled for a split instant.

_Oh yeah. He's gay. He's *so* gay._ Fortunately, that didn't bother him, right now. Hell, he was prepared to take one for the team, right now. Anything to stop his kids being slaves. And he meant *anything*.

Evan smirked. "What? Surprised I know about you and your little closet problem? After all those post-game 'on's? I'm not bright, but I'm not *dense* either, you know."

"Wellforyourbig*fat*information[2], Daniels, I. Don't. Care. ButI'malsogonnaripofftheoffice. Justtowatchyoucryaboutit."

"Meh, go for it," said Evan. "Like I care about you leaving your fingerprints everywhere and getting arrested." He buffed his nails on his shirt. "You still here? Or have you done it already?"

"Finewatchthisthen," and he took off.

And slammed into Principal Kelly.

The force of the impact bashed the man's brains out against the lockers. Pietro backed off slowly, then took off at a run. He looked *terrified*.

The sim faded out.

"Damn," Evan said. "This is harder than it looks."

"See what I mean?" Susan sighed and reset the sim.

"Okay," Evan recovered from the shock of Kelly's simulated death. "Run it again. This time I'm just going to walk away."

"Oooo, lookit Daniels," the hologram said again. "Mr. I'm-so-superior. HA! You couldn't catch a fly if *Toad* spit it up."

Evan put on a big fake smile, turned, and walked the other way.

"Get back here, lame-o!" Pietro zipped forward and tripped Evan, sending him sprawling across the floor.

"What's going on here?" Rogue appeared out of the crowd.

"Teachin' Daniels to wash floors," Pietro smirked. "Your Tools Number 1: the tongue."

"Don't make me come over there," Rogue toyed with a glove.

"Mr. Daniels, why are you on the floor?" Principal Kelly joined them in the middle of the hallway.

"He's meeting his closest relative, the worm," Pietro cracked.

"That's it!" Rogue yanked off her glove and started towards the Brotherhood boy. She knew the rules and didn't intend to actually hurt him, only threaten to.

"Whoopsisthatthebellgottago," Pietro zipped away.

The sudden movement confused Rogue's sense of balance, and she stumbled forward, her hand landing squarely around Kelly's nose. They fell together, as if in slow motion, surreal light flashing about their bodies.

"Rogue!" Evan scrambled up and pushed her off the principal, but it was too late.

Kelly was dead again.

"Had enough?" Susan tapped her foot, thinking the situation hopeless.

"No, I've got a better idea. Let me try again."

"Okay..."

"Oooo, lookit Daniels. Mr. I'm-so-superior. HA! You couldn't catch a fly if *Toad* spit it up."

"All right, Pietro, you wanna go?!" Evan hardly had to fake being angry.

The hologram returned his glare. "Fine. Where?"

"Outside. Now." They glared each other out the door, which happened to be nearby, pushing it open at the same time.

Kelly, whistling and walking down the very same hallway, spotted them and gave chase. "Hey! You two! Get back here!"

Pietro started teasing Evan, running around him in circles. Evan was caught in the middle in a whirlwind of insults and, well, actual wind. He found that he couldn't stay calm as easily as he thought. "Arrgh!" He shot a volley of spikes in what he hoped was the right direction to hit the hologram.

"No fighting on school--urk," was Principal Kelly's last word as he sank onto the spikes which pinned him loosely to the brick wall.

Susan shut off the hologram again.

"Man!" Evan cried in frustration. "Okay," he instantly created a new plan. "K-man, get over here."

Kurt joined Evan in the middle of the floor, and Susan started the sim a fourth time.

"Oooo, lookit Daniels. Mr. I'm-so-superior. HA! You couldn't catch a fly if *Toad* spit it up."

"No, I probably couldn't," Evan said agreeably.

"Heh, and look who you're hanging with," Pietro went on. "Your freak-friend is freakier than mine."

"Probably true," Evan said.

"Wassamatter, Daniels?" the hologram taunted. "Gone wimpy now?"

"I guess so," Evan shrugged. "I'm just not as good as you, Pietro."

Pietro seemed thrown by this statement of surrender, but recovered quickly. "That's right. Now bow before me."

Evan bowed obediently.

"What's up, yo?" Todd came up behind Pietro.

"Daniels quit," Pietro said. "He's doin' whatever I say."

"Ooh, ooh!" Todd bounced up and down. "Make 'im whup the freak!"

"Yeah, Daniels," Pietro nodded. "Beat up your weirdo friend."

"Hey!" Kurt protested.

"Sorry, man," Evan pushed Kurt against the virtual lockers.

"Haha!" Todd seemed satisfied by this half-hearted fight. "Score one for the Brotherhood!"

Principal Kelly rounded the corner and took in the scene in an instant. "No fighting in the hallways!"

"Can it, Kelly." Todd, high on victorious euphoria, did the stupid thing and spat his infamous slime in the principal's face.
Just as the man was opening his mouth to say something else.

Evan watched in horror as the holographic Kelly made the international sign for choking, and then asphyxiated to a virtual death.

"I can't watch this anymore." Margretha walked out, hoping to find the rec room so she could catch some new-not-ancient-reruns on TV ... but either the layout of the mansion had changed, or else her memory wasn't as good as she had thought.

She wound up in the kitchen instead.

_Oh well, long as I'm here ..._

*

Principal Kelly was not having a good day.

Evan tried every reaction from hugging Pietro to killing him. He approached his rival with every possible combination of teammates. He went through the conversation in the hallway, a classroom, and that run-down bathroom that no one ever used.
He used his powers. He didn't use his powers. He shouted at Kelly to run away, or defended him bodily. He went to school, stayed at the Institute, or took the train home to the city.

In desperation, he tried break-dancing and demonstrated a novel use for a can opener.

It didn't matter. Kelly died every single time.

"We're doomed," Evan sighed as the sim faded out for the umpteenth time.

*

Kitty had ducked away for a healthy slice of celery. Unfortunately, she hadn't picked her moment.

"...a little lettuce, a little bacon, a few pickles. Ooo! Marshmallow fluff!"

"EEEEEEEeeeewwwww..." said Kitty. "You're as bad as *Kurt*..."

Mags looked up from spreading marshmallow fluff on top of mayonnaise. "Um. Hello? Blue? Fuzzy? Tridactyl? Ringing any bells? I'm his *daughter*. Whaddaya *expect*?"

...and downstairs...

"Oooo, lookit Daniels. Mr. I'm-so-superior. HA! You couldn't catch a fly if *Toad* spit it up."

Evan sighed. "Let's not deny this any longer," he said, and seized Pietro by the shirt and laid one square on his lips.

Pietro froze solid.

_Hey, this might actually work..._ He broke the kiss to discover Principal Kelly was having a heart attack.

"God *damnit*!" Evan ran a tired hand over his face. "Okay, I can't save Principal Kelly. But I *can* make it not be my fault."

"No good," Victoria shook her head. "Remember that incident on the football field? With the flaming mascot? Turns out the Professor *didn't* finish erasing Mr. Kelly's memory. He knows who you all are."

"When he dies suddenly," Susan continued, "investigators will find certain incriminating notes in his office. Kelly had strong suspicions about the whole Institute, but no proof. Unfortunately, some police were a little unscrupulous about getting search warrants."

"And we're busted," Evan finished.

"Exactly," Victoria picked up again. "Even if you aren't guilty of murder or manslaughter or any degree of such crimes, the public won't have second thoughts about ... well, you know."

"So there's nothing we can do?" Scott asked.

"Our instructors are doing extensive research into Mags' powers," Susan said. "We're only beginning to understand how the timestream works. It's a very stubborn natural law."

"ARG!" Evan collapsed into a nearby chair and buried his face in his hands. "There's gotta be a better way of doing this! I don't wanna go through this for real...." He glanced up, a desperate hope gleaming in his eyes. "Maybe if I lure Pietro, or, I dunno Kelly away from the point of divergence, then whatever action is taken is at a nice safe distance from the Principal."

Victoria's brow furrowed. "Won't work, remember scenario Twelve? Twenty-seven? Forty-two? He still dies, D - Evan." She pinched the bridge of her nose, a sure sign of an approaching headache and exhaled gustily. "Almost as if he's destined or something..."

"Forty-two..." Kurt murmured, scratching his ear with his tailtip. "Well, there's always the direct approach...."

He suddenly was aware of a dozen eyes resting on him, and shrugged, a tiny sheepish smile tugging the corner of his lips.

"Tell the truth."

"What?!" Evan propelled himself out of the chair and began pacing the room, gesturing to an invisible figure. "Hey Pietro, I can't talk to you now because if I do our future kids tell us that we'll all be turned into slaves?!"

"Either that or Borg." Kurt grinned again, with some more of his usual humour. "And Evan, I think you might not want to mention the 'our future kids' bit, goodness knows how Pietro could carry them to term, ja?"

Susan forced a smile, and tried not to mention the sentinel-based artificial wombs.

"We'd better come up with something soon; things are starting to get kinda close."

*

"Oooo, lookit Daniels. Mr. I'm-so-superior. HA! You couldn't catch a fly if *Toad* spit it up."

"Pietro. Just don't? There's a high chance this conversation is going to end in someone's *death*, okay?"

"What? Is that a threat? Asifyoucouldcatchme."

"I mean it, you're gonna kill Principal Kelly. In less than a minute."

"Ooo! My dream come true, do tell."

Well, at least he got him talking. "Let's walk this way a while," he said, leading Pietro away from the scene of the disaster. "See, this is going to sound weird, but a bunch of mutants from the future dropped by and they told us that we were going to kill him, see..."

"Well, this is nucking futs," said Pietro. "Are they giving you medication for this?"

Evan avoided the stairs and headed outside. One death down... "I could take you to meet 'em if you like. You'll *love* my daughter."

"*WHAT*?"

"Heads up!" said someone on the basketball court. The ball sailed overhead, smacked Kelly on the nose, and sent him headfirst into the cast-iron railing below.

"Oh, *fucking* hell!" said Evan. "What's he doing, *following* us?

"That's it!" he cried. "I give up!"

"'Bout time," snickered someone in the background.

"No, wait!" came a call from Kurt. "I think I have an idea to make this work."

There was a groan from the assembled.

"No, really. I *do.*"

Evan rolled his eyes. "Fine, K-Man. What's your idea?"

There was a mischievous smile, a wink, and then Kurt stepped up to whisper his idea in Evan's ear.

"I don't know, man ... risky." Kurt bent to whisper again. "Hey--okay, let's see how this goes." He looked to Susan. "And, I swear, this is the last idea whether it works or not. Really." Nobody looked convinced.

"Oooo, lookit Daniels. Mr. I'm-so-superior. HA! You couldn't catch a fly if *Toad* spit it up."

"Excuse me," Evan shoved past the simulation. "I have to talk to our Principal." He made his way down the hallway to Kelly, who was just coming around the corner. "Hey, I need to talk to you. Can you spare a minute?"

"Uh--uh, sure, there ... Mr. Daniels," Kelly remembered his name. "What can I do for you?"

"Hey! Get back here, you dick!" Pietro sped toward them, and Evan saw it as if it was in slow motion. He shoved Kelly out of the way, and Pietro went slamming into the lockers, slumping to the floor. "Ow..."

"Listen, sir, I happen to know that something awful could happen to you any minute."

"I have insurance, Mr. Daniels," Kelly said wryly, letting himself be steered away from the scene.

"Ah--" Evan thought quickly. "Right, but ... you don't have *this* insurance. *This* insurance is, uh, really *good* *stuff.*" He managed to keep Kelly talking and moving away from the scene for a full five minutes, though he knew for sure that his life insurance sales policy sucked.

"All right, well, thank you, Mr. Daniels, I'll--uh--consider that," Kelly finally managed to pull away. He headed around a corner of the hallway and Evan pumped his arm, then proceeded to do a victory dance. The simulation faded.

"Well?" He presented himself to the group, as if for inspection.

"Very nice," said Susan, "except that the second he left you, he walked into a pole."

"So that's it. There's nothing we can do except stay out of school completely for the next week?"

"That's about the size of it."

"Then what happens to *us*?" Victoria asked. "Will we just disappear or something?"

Susan looked up at the ceiling. She seemed to be calculating something. "The world we came from will be replaced by the future of a new timeline, so technically, we won't exist anymore."

"*Technically*?" Ricky wasn't happy with that. "I don't want to die!"

*

An unseen figure chortled at the repeated scenes.

"Now *that* one was imaginative, if I do say so myself."

Another figure stepped up beside her.

"Atropos... What *are* you doing? Torturing these poor mortals in this fashion... It just isn't right! You *know* we're not supposed to meddle!"

"Aww... Lighten up, Clotho! It's so much fun watching them struggle against us."

"You mean you," said a third figure as it joined the other two; "*I* most certainly never included this in their threads!"

"Oh, hiiii Lachesis," said the one named Atropos in soft dulcet tones. "Why, whatever in the world are you doing here? I trust nothing is wrong with the weave?"

"For the time being, no. However, your constant tugging on this skein might unravel it," said Lachesis, glaring a thunderstorm's worth.

"Oh c'mon, you wouldn't *believe* the things they would do to alter the future," Atropos tried flippantly.

Now at this point it is necessary to make a comment. You've all seen ice, those little cubes you put in your martini-scotch, and some of you may have ice-frosted windows come winter. Fewer still might have seen hoarfrost and have to deal with coldbite and chillblain. And of course *everyone* has seen those south pole documentaries (or Greenland for that matter) and/or heard of Ice Ages. Well, all these would have to be considered only slightly nippy in comparison to the two words that are coming on right in 5...4...3...2...1...
"Try me," was the liquid nitrogen response.

...ten minutes later...

"He did WHAT?"

"Just as I tell you, full on the lips! Can we keep going on pleaaaase? Pretty please with a cherry on top?"

"Weeellll... Alright. But just a few more mind you, and that only because I haven't laughed this much since Oedipus."

"Yaaaayyyy! Love you sis!"

*

"Well... *technically*, we won't exist as we *are*, we'll exist as we *should* be." She grinned. "Depending on which school you went to."

"Um," said Susan. "According to my stats, Principal Kelly's going to get shot, now."

"*WHAT*?" Evan shrieked. "After all that guff I had to go through, someone *shoots* him?"

"Here's an idea," said Kurt. "Why don't we just give up and *tell* him we're mutants, and we're scared of prejudice, and could he please keep it under his hat?"

Everyone stared at him.

Suddenly the intruder alarm went off.

"What's that?"

"Oh, no." Margretha shut her eyes and moaned. "Don't tell me he followed us!"

"Who did?" Jean asked.

"My brother. Well, half-brother. There were ... forced breeding experiments. We have the same father, but different mothers. I told you they treated us as a commodity. Smash has the same time-jumping abilities I do, and ..."

"And?"

She didn't know how to tell them this. "And ... telekinesis."

"What?"

Kurt looked at Jean. There was just no *way*...

"We *said* they were forced," said Victoria.

"There's more," said Mags. "He claims to have a rapport with a cosmic entity. He calls himself the Phoenix."

"Can we beat this guy?" Scott asked.

"We'll need help," Mags said. "And I know just where to find them."

Unfortunately, Margretha's parents hadn't been entirely honest with her about all aspects of their past.

Like the Brotherhood.

In Mags' time, the "Brotherhood" was the B-squad, and most of them resided in the mansion. There was trust and cooperation between the teams, and Mags was naive enough to assume it had always been that way. Besides, no one had ever told her differently.

She was about to find out the hard way that that wasn't the case.

*

The doorbell at the Brotherhood house didn't work. So she pounded on the door instead.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!" said a voice from inside.

The door opened to reveal a rather scruffy-looking teen, about Scott's age, with spiky brown hair formed into such peaks and troughs it was obvious he'd been sleeping up until that moment. The faded pyjamas only served to support this. He scratched unceremoniously at his backside and squinted at the shadowy girl standing alone on the doorstep.

"What do you want?" he demanded, then sniffed the air. "And what's that *smell*?" Brown eyes narrowed at her, and immediately he said, "That's not our garbage, so don't even accuse us of it. If that's why you came here, then you can just turn around and walk away again. Come back at some kind of godly hour if you wanna complain, why doncha?"

Mags nervously waved away the trademark Wagner brimstone cloud, and her sharp eyesight - inherited from her father, naturally - picked out a watch on his wrist. It read 5:34 AM.

_Oops._ She'd been trying for about five minutes before the conversation with the X-Men she'd just left, but it looked like her calculations were off again. Instead, she'd popped out a full four hours previous to her intended Timerest. _Still, at least I got the location right. Dad always said the B-Team used to live in this 'Boarding House' place. Still, I would've thought the Professor could've afforded something a little better for them, even if they are just the B-Team. It's falling apart._

The boy in the doorway eyed her suspiciously. "You're not leaving." It was more of a statement than a question, and his gaze was challenging. Obviously he wasn't too pleased about being woken up so abruptly.

Mags shook her head, thankful that nighttime gloom shrouded her from his bleary sight. She didn't recognise this strange teen, and was reluctant to reveal herself to just *anybody* in this time period. Who knew what kind of problems that could cause for the timestream?

"I'm sorry to bother you, but is this the Bayville Boarding House?"

"Yeah. What of it?"

She scuffed her feet nervously, not liking his hostile stare. "Erm, may I ask who you are, sir?"

The boy folded his arms. "Not that it's any of your business, but the name's Alvers. Lance Alvers."

Mags' eyes went wide. "The lost warrior," she breathed, and looked at him again. The one who sacrificed himself to save his team from a mutant-hating mob. Yes, he resembled the pictures she'd seen. Those that weren't blackened or torn to pieces, that is. Not many remnants of the old times remained in her world, and most stories of the past were transmitted by word of mouth. "Avalanche?"

The dark-haired boy paled, and his face fell open with shock. "How did you- Who are you? Whaddya want? Money? I ain't into blackmail, kid."

Mags shook her head to clear her thoughts. _Focus, Margretha, focus!_ "Entschuldigung. I don't want your money. Let me explain. My name is Margretha Wagner."

"Wagner?" he sniffed, not impressed. "You mean like that foreign kid from school? You some relation of his?"

_From school?_ Mags frowned. _But he and Dad work together, don't they? He should know his name. Perhaps he's just stalling me, testing me to see who I am._

She nodded. "Yes, I am a relation of Nightcrawler, otherwise known as Kurt Michael Wagner - formerly of Heirelgart, Germany; adopted son of Johannes and Astrid Wagner and biological son of Raven Darkholme, known to most as Mystique. You have no reason to doubt my word, sir. May I come in? I must speak with you and the rest of the B-Team."

"B-Team?" He sounded thoroughly confused at the barrage of classified information, but gestured she come inside anyway.

The house was dark, and he made no move to flip on a light-switch after shutting the door behind them - for which Mags was grateful. The lost warrior's reaction had made her feel distinctly uneasy, as had the run-down interior her excellent vision picked out the moment she passed through the doorway. There was no *way* Professor Xavier would allow his students to live in squalor like this. No *way*. What was going *on* here?

The lock clicked into place. "Right, now who exactly *are* you, kid? And how do you know so much about the Freakazoid and Boss Lady?"

_Freakazoid? Boss Lady?_ "Is that any way to talk about your teammates?"

"Teammates? Like I'd ever work with Fuzz-butt." He snorted derisively.

_Not good. Definitely not good._ "But aren't you a part of the X-Men?"

A short, barking laugh exited his throat, and he stifled it with one hand. Abruptly, there was a banging form upstairs, and a silver-haired figure shot into view on the landing.

"What'sgoingon?" Pietro demanded, more alert in five seconds than Lance was in five minutes. His gaze fell upon the shadowy figure to which his leader was talking. "Who'sthat?"

"Some kid who reckons we're a part of the X-Geeks," Lance replied, still snickering.

"Shedoes?" A swoosh of silver sped down the staircase, and Mags suddenly found herself with an arm balanced on her shoulder and a pale face not three inches from her own. "And why exactly would she think that? Hmmm?"

_Something's most definitely wrong here._

"Can I talk to one of the girls?" she asked.

"One of what girls?" Lance said, looking at her funny.

_Oh, no ..._
"Who else lives here?" she asked, hoping there'd at least be someone she actually knew.

"Whatareyou, nuts?" Pietro said. "You're some kinda spy for the X-Geeks! We ain't telling you anything!"

Mags pinched the bridge of her nose. Maybe she'd *really* overshot... Forge's magic watch *did* adjust to local time, but it didn't have a calendar. "Um. What year is this?"

"Two thousand and two."

"The date?"

Lance told her. It was still today. Good.

"Okay. Obviously I've been misinformed about things, so we seriously need to touch base." She used her tail to turn on the light. "Let's start. I'm Kurt's daughter and I've come from the future to avert a disaster that will cause all of mutantkind to be sold into slavery. Who the hell are you?"
 

[1] Reference to 'A Pale Horse' by Julia456, one of the best Evo writers out there, and most addictive.
[2] _Stick Around_.  I love that show...

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