“We have a problem,” Professor Xavier declared when the team gathered in to his office.
“No shit, baldy? We were there trying to look for the source of the Legacy, and the whole fucking building disappeared,” Logan huffed. Professor shook his head.
“No, no... The problem is far more serious than that. I was observing your progress through Cerebro. The building didn’t just disappear. It was moved.”
“Moved? To where?” Scott asked puzzled.
“That is a good question. I’m able to track down any mutant, at any time and any place on the earth. Right after the building vanished I was unable to detect any of the mutants that disappeared with it. It appears that they simply do not exist anymore,” professor said.
Logan, Scott and Ororo could only stare at the Professor Xavier. None of what he just had said made any sense to them. It was Jean who broke the sudden silence.
“Alternate reality? Is... Is that even possible?” She asked hesitantly. Professor Xavier nodded.
“We do know that General Stryker has been dabbling with Legacy and related projects. We also know about his... Frankly perverse interest in mutants and different mutations. People with gifts that are able to bend time and space really exist. It looks like Stryker has managed to harness that ability, to some extent. Which brings me to the core of our problem...” Professor Xavier paused.
“We have to stop him!” Scott huffed. Now it was Logan’s turn to glare at him.
“Stop a guy who can manipulate time and space? Good luck with that, fly-boy...”
“Children, stop your bickering!” Professor Xavier exclaimed.
“Stopping Stryker isn’t our agenda anymore. It is simply impossible task. Far more important is to find out if he has already managed to tamper with our fate. As far as we know, we may not even really exist,” Professor continued.
“What the fuck? Of course we exist! I’m sitting right here, you’re there and last time I checked, this School was still filled with brats of all sizes and shapes!” Logan blurted.
“That may be the case. Or we’re merely a discarded timeline, a shred that co-exists with actual line for a brief moment before disappearing. Our primary goal from now on is to locate a mutant with the ability to shift through different dimensions and send him, or her, to gather intel. Our timeline might be the only one, but if there’s several...” Professor said.
“Then were screwed,” Logan said.
“Yes. Indeed. For the lack of a less vulgar description of our situation... We’re screwed,” Professor Xavier confirmed.
It was up to Professor to locate their saviour. Since there was nothing left to do but wait Logan left the sublevels and found his way to a small kitchenette. It was reserved to teachers during day time. Now it was well past midnight, and only few people were up. Only one person sat in the kitchenette. Marie.
For a long while he stood at the doorway, staring at her back. At the compound he hadn’t been 100 percent sure of the identity of her lookalike. Not before the apparition had called him Wolverine.
“Had a rough day?” Marie suddenly asked, without turning to look at him.
“The usual. We came, we saw, we kicked ass and took names,” he huffed, then walked in and sat opposite her.
“But that’s enough about me. How was your day?” He asked, eyeing the pile of used tissues and a steaming pot of tea in front of Marie. At the morning she had complained that she felt a bit chilly.
“I guess the flu caught me finally,” she said, sipping the tea.
“That sucks. You should go and see Jean. Ask her to check it up,” he said, all of a sudden worried over the sniffling girl.
“No, it’s okay. I just take an aspirin and go to bed...” She said. And he knew, just knew that he should take her to see Jean as soon as possible.
“Come on. I bet Jean is still at the med lab. I’ll take you there and she can check you up just in case.”
“Just in case of what?” Marie asked, still cradling the ceramic mug in her hands.
“Well... Just in case that it isn’t a regular flu? What if it is something more serious? Like pneumonia?” He tried to assure her that it really would be a good idea to go and see Jean. He knew how ridiculous it sounded.
“Fine. I’ll go as soon as I finish this,” Marie huffed, saluting with her tea.
“We’re going now. We better hurry before Jean goes to bed. She had a rough day and...”
“Okay! Okay! I’m going!”
To his immense relief Jean found no reason to be worried. Marie was suffering from common flu.
“But it was a good catch, Logan. It could have been more serious,” Jean said after Marie had already left.
“Cases of Legacy have already been reported.” To that Logan had nothing to say. For a long moment they just sat there, steady hum of the ventilation system the only sound in the world.
“What do we do when it reaches us?” He finally asked. Jean sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. And it scares the shit out of me. Right now only thing we can do is to isolate patients and hope that at least some of us dodge the bullet,” she said.
“But I have a bad feeling that Legacy is the one bullet that nobody, not even you, is able to dodge,” she continued after a short pause.
That night he was unable to sleep. Jean’s words kept pestering him. How did you dodge a hail of bullets that were targeting the very basic structure of you? How did you hide from something you couldn’t see or sense otherwise? How did you stop a whole world from dying?
Finally, after several hours of tossing and turning he sat up on his bed. The only possible solution he had managed to figure out was isolation. Complete isolation. Selected group of individuals, remote location and no contact whatsoever with the outside world. But was it already too late? Who would choose the group? Who’d decide who got to live? And where was a remote and isolated location? And what if he was asking the wrong questions? What if the Legacy wasn’t the ultimate threat?
“Oh, for fuck’s sakes...” He shook off the cover and grabbed his jeans. He’d go nuts if he just sat here alone. He wasn’t the brain of any operation. He was the muscle that made any operation work. His knapsack waited at the bottom of his closet, already packed in case of emergency. He got dressed, then just as he was walking out from the door he returned and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from his bedside table. Scribbled a hasty note after sudden realization.
On his way to student dormitories he slipped the note from underneath Professor’s door. Xavier would understand it. He had to. Starting from the next morning Professor Xavier’s Academy for Gifted Youngsters would be short of two mutants.
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