(1st story)
(Undisclosed Location)
A man in handcuffs and orange prison overalls is being escorted down a dark hallway by a number of armed soldiers. The man thinks to himself about how it is moving day, but only for him. He is probably being taken to an offshore facility for safety reasons. Not his, though; everyone else’s. One of the soldiers injects him in the arm and the man guesses it’s probably propofol or etomidate, both a general anesthetic. Then it will be halothane to keep him under for the duration as it’s the only safe way to move him.
The man is placed on a hospital bed and strapped down to it. The soldiers escort him outside, where a helicopter is waiting for him on a snowy helipad. All the drugs he has been given are the standard stuff and the human body can develop a resistance to nearly anything if the mind and soul are willing to put the work in. He’s had a lifetime. He opens his eyes and grabs the nearest soldier’s gun. It sprays bullets as the two men struggle. The man gets a brief look around him and estimates he is somewhere in Kazakhstan, Mongolia or Northeast China, given the arid climate and lack of vegetation.
After firing the gun at the soldiers, the man figures out that the bullets are probably Soviet in design. From that, he begins to figure a few things out about his captors and their relative threat level. After shooting the men and freeing himself, he sees one of the soldiers has a bomb. The man quickly gets on the helicopter and takes off as the bomb explodes. The man has little doubt he probably has to worry about the people further up the food chain, but once he is out of local airspace he will have room to maneuver.
He is The Future and he has survived 65 years in some of the most violent places on Earth. He has committed crimes, abuses and atrocities and more than one act of genocide. He is living on borrowed time and his future is running out. But there is another, an infant son. An heir… the future… and he knows exactly where he is.
(the Jean Grey School)
In the Danger Room, Rockslide tells a hot and sweaty M to take a break but she insists she is okay. He starts to protest and she immediately asks him if he is tired or injured. He replies that he isn’t but, when she asks if he is scared, he says that he is and out of his mind too. She points at him and tells him he should be, as there is a world of enemies out there and even people like them aren’t safe. She tells him she is going to attack him and this time he really needs to fight back. As they lunge at each other, Rockslide says that he doesn’t want to hurt her. M replies that the next time she is up against the Sisterhood, she doesn’t want to die again. They will come for them again; the Sisterhood or maybe someone worse, and they won’t be ready for them. M then yells at Rockslide to hit her back.
In the hanger bay, Storm flies down through the open doors to meet Psylocke, who is standing on the wing of the Blackbird jet. Psylocke tells her the team is drifting, to which Storm asks if she called her there before her morning coffee to tell her the obvious. She tells Psylocke that she doesn’t have to be a telepath to feel these things. As she was flying over, she was alerted to a massive power spike coming from the Danger Room. When Psylocke guesses that it was Monet, Storm says that she won’t stop punishing herself. Asked how she is faring, Storm muses on the fact Rachel mocks her by calling her the leader of the team, but all she could manage in Japan was an awkward retreat. Psylocke adds that they managed to kill Arkea but Storm replies that they let Madelyne Pryor and Selene go free. It was a tactical necessity but maybe Rachel is right.
After a few seconds of silence, Psylocke asks where is the Ororo Munroe that gave Cyclops the finger during the proto-mutant crisis. She was proud to follow that Storm. She asks how much it annoys her when Rachel speaks up. Why doesn’t she make it official and actually form the team? Storm turns to her and asks if she could do it just like that. She doesn’t have a mandate and they have gotten away with it so far by being ad-hoc about everything. Psylocke tells her she’s Storm; she should declare her own mandate and give them all the finger. Storm tells her she is having breakfast with her daughter Kymera. She asks Psylocke to look in on M and make sure she doesn’t take the grid down, otherwise they will have to cancel classes. As Storm flies off, Psylocke says that headmaster Ororo is her least favorite Ororo, to which Storm agrees.
In his lab, Beast is looking over Shogo as Jubilee watches. Jubilee asks if her son is too fat and Beast replies that, whilst he isn’t a pediatrician, he’s sure infants are supposed to be chubby. If he wants to eat, then let him. Jubilee picks Shogo up and grins as she says that she loves all his rolls and squishes. Beast asks Jubilee how she has been but she replies that it isn’t her checkup. He asks her to indulge him, as they never fully explore the side effects of her vampiric nature. It seems she went through a lot on Catalina Island. Jubilee tells him not to take it the wrong way but she commanded at Catalina and she crushed it. Then, just like that, she is back at the school in some not-quite-a-student and not-quite-an-X-Man holding pattern. Beast asks if she has spoken to Rachel and Jubilee replies that she hasn’t but then who has recently.
Rachel sits in the small security office staring at the numerous CCTV screens around her. She recalls her and John Sublime walking towards a helicopter. She asks if he is just leaving after they risked their lives to help take down Arkea and save him. He gets in the helicopter and tells her it’s complicated. All excuses aside, they still killed his sister. In the security room, Rachel mutters to herself that he killed her mother.
On the front lawn, the students are playing a baseball game. Surge comes up to bat, whilst Primal and Armor crouch behind her. Doop throws the ball and Surge strikes it high into the air. Primal reaches into the air, ready to catch the ball.
A loud crack suddenly sound echoes out across the field and everyone stops to see where it came from. Primal collapses to his knees as blood pours out of a wound in his chest. The others rush over to see that he’s been shot. Someone asks how he never saw it coming, as he has hyperinstinct. They scoop in him and rush off to the infirmary before anyone else gets shot. Quentin warns the teachers they are coming but then wonders why he can’t sense anyone. He looks out across the grassy field and realizes there is no-one out there. He can pick up animals and insects, so he isn’t being blocked. He just cannot find whoever fired the shot. Someone yells to him to get inside as Storm is initiating a lockdown.
As the students peer in through the med bay windows, they look at Beast operating on Primal as Storm, Rachel and M watch. Beast says that he can assure them that Primal won’t die and he can be certain of that because whoever shot him made sure he did not receive a fatal wound. M summarizes that it was a shot meant to wound and asks how it was possible. The shot must have been taken some distance away since they cannot find any trace of the shooter. Beast says he would describe the wound as near surgical, as it followed a path through the body to ensure tremendous damage but enough to just stay on this side of death. Provided of course that a facility such as this one was close by. Storm tells Beast he cannot be positive of it and he agrees in a legal sense but it is what he believes to be true regardless. He tells them to come back later once he has the ballistics run.
Later that evening, Sprite is flying through the hallways when she suddenly gets thirsty. She flutters over to a water fountain and takes a sip but as she flies off she starts to cough. The coughing gets worse until she collapses on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.
In Jubilee’s room, the young girl is dancing around to music whilst Shogo sleeps in his cot. A message suddenly pops up on her phone and she picks it up and reads it. She screams and rushes out of the room with Shogo. The message on the phone reads “You have my son. I am coming to reclaim him. You and everyone else in that school will die. This is the future.”
(2nd story)
During the nighttime at the Jean Grey School, Anole, Broo, Hellion and Rockslide walk down a corridor. Broo exclaims that he is sure that vigilante force would be frowned upon by the office. Hellion tells him they are not vigilantes but they would all agree that what happened to Primal and Sprite deserves a response from their fellow students. Rockslide sums it up by saying they got hit so they have to hit back. As they enter the Danger Room, Hellion tells them they will petition to set up their own team through the proper channels but this is a way of proving they can step up.
As they enter the room, they see a large, open, flower-covered field with mountains in the distance. They are now wearing medieval clothes and Rockslide doesn’t seem impressed. Broo points them to a large stand that contains countless weapons and informs them that it must be a weapon training simulation. As they inspect the weapons, Hellion says it was supposed to be more than that. Anole asks what the program is about but, before he can answer, Rockslide alerts them to incoming fire. They look up to see hundreds of arrows about to rain down on them. Anole yells for everyone to grab a shield and they manage to block the arrows just in time. Once again Anole asks what the program is and Hellion just says he found it on the system. As the others duck behind their shields, Rockslide looks out and tells them that he sees a large medieval army on the horizon with men on foot and cavalry.
Rockslide notices the archers are falling back, which probably means they will send in the cavalry next. Which is foolish, because they should use their ranged assets for as long as possible before initiating close fighting. He looks at the rest of the team and says that he plays RPGs and asks if they have a problem with it. Broo informs them he has been wounded and it is quite painful, so it would appear the safeties have been disabled. Anole yells for the Danger Room exit but it doesn’t appear. Hellion tells him to save his breath and that the only thing to do is fight. In victory, they will have proven themselves worthy in her eyes. Anole is confused by Hellion’s words but he doesn’t have chance to think about it too long, as men on horseback head towards them.
Rockslide tells him that it’s still the Danger Room and it’s just polygons. With that, he runs forwards and knocks the horses down. As he smashes the men, he says that he was totally born in the wrong century. Unfortunately, he doesn’t notice the army lighting the fuse on a huge cannon. He turns around just in time to have the cannonball hit him and send him catapulting through the air. The others seem shocked and Broo informs them that the next volley will be aimed at them.
Suddenly, a voice calls out from behind them and tells Hellion that it was an impressive leadership display. But, if they take the brute force approach, then they will tire out long before the army runs out of soldiers. The boys turn to see Psylocke standing before them, also kitted out in medieval clothing. She tells them she doesn’t know why they are so surprised to see her, given it was her program they hacked in to.
