The room was chilly to Xaviers mind, the reports were coming in thick and fast now, he had to get out of Washington as soon as humanly possible. Well as fast as anyone with some serious connections could, Chambers had made his move and it hadn't been in the direction he'd thought it would be. The phone in his hands was just bieng answered when the scanning he'd been doing regularly grew fruit. There were men coming and they had a definate turn to their minds, the blankness of them told him that they were here to kill, not to talk. He nodded to Ororo who took her station behind the door, the gun in her hand seeming strange to his eye. She'd been a thief, one of Cairo's best and she knew how to kill when she needed to. The voice on the other end confirmed their positions, the raw stink of sulphur filled the room as the demon appeared with another person. The aboriginal man just nodded and seated himself on the large bed, taking out a bull roarer he began to spin it above his head.
The sharp retort of Ororo's gun through the partially opened door was met by several men dropping low to the floor outside. Inside the entire room sparkled with light as the bull roarer shifted and flowed against the air. The fabric of reality being warped out of true so they could leave safely, the blue demon waved them toward him when the time was right. Ororo still held her gun at the doorway, they saw it open but by then they were already too far gone for the bullets fired at them to even touch the air around them. Gateway was a powerful mutant, he could send you anywhere or anywhen, no one but a few knew of him. Xavier had heard of him from others who'd been saved by him, of the light that sucked them from the places they were in, the dangers that surrounded them lost and they found themselves looking at a wizened old man before being dumped somewhere else. He'd called a favour in and it'd be one that would take some repaying of that he knew. He was heading for the Scottish highlands, somewhere he could keep a low profie for a while. He'd been pressing buttons in Washington and the responses weren't the one's he expected, this was turning into a war and there didn't seem to be a way to stop it.
Reaching out to Ororo as she floundered in the nothingness around them he gripped her hand, hoping against all hope that events wouldn't overtake the plans he'd put into place when the peace had looked like it'd win out. Scott knew his job, as did Hank, Jean was doing something else, a recon mission that wold hopefully give them somewhere to regroup and run to when all this calmed down; that is if it ever did. He just hoped there'd be a home they could rebuild, the school was so close to New York that it was inevitable that it'd be a target of humans. Angry at the destruction of their loved ones even though the school had nothing to do with the disease that was ravaging the city's hospitals and clinics.
New York was only the start, Chambers had been missing for days when the news finally broke open about the crisis. WHO had been in touch, the disease was a varient of a manufactured virus, made in Russia during the cold war. They were working on cultures but the thing was a chimera; which meant it would and could hide in the bodies own systems. Only coming to fruit when the carrier was under bodily stress, the amount of people who'd begun to stream out of New York would send the disease far and wide. WHO was doing it's best informing the CDC of measures that had to be put in place for the safety of the entire country. Thing was the panic and violence caused their own traps, police were breaking up riots about food and water, military were trying to keep order in places where any uniform was seen as oppression. Xavier knew the signs of war when he saw them and it would get a hell of a lot worse before it got any better.
The green of Muir Island was in view now, Gateway was wrapping up his bull roarer, his semi naked form even at home here in the coolness of the north. The look from the older man's eyes told Xavier that he'd be staying here too. Gateway was an enigma, he did what was asked of him but he also worked for his own purpose and what that was no one knew. Ororo settled again on her feet looked much happier, her hand wanting to drop the weapon it carried. Yet she couldn't do it, knowing that it might be needed even here. Tucking it into her belt they watched as a small boat flashed it's lights to them, telling them to meet at the quayside. They had breathing room for a while but for how long was another matter entirely.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hank leaves taking what he can, Richards learns the truth about the things he saw in the labs and Marie gets to help someone through their first steps....and it isn't the baby.