Slept through the age of reason...

[Warren Worthington III]

(( OOC: Kicking off DoFP!

The 100mverse exiles should assume events were as described earlier: Rahne, Vanisher (aka plan B), and Primer broke into Institute to kidnap Gail and somehow Vanisher+Illyana sent Rahne, Primer, and a bunch of Institute types into the future.

Those of you who want to interact with Warren, either future!people on his team or exiles who arrive "now", post on this thread.

Others, feel free to post your arrivals in other threads... in groups or individually or whatever you want. They don't all have to be simultaneous -- it's timetravel after all! So you can arrive minutes or hours or days later, or have arrived hours or days ago, or really whatever you want.

Have fun! ))

Warren is out of bed and halfway to the door when he hears the alarms going off before he’s entirely awake, and has made it to the door before he identifies the “mutant activity detected” signal and calms down slightly… their base isn’t under attack. He takes a moment to grab his uniform from the pile of clothes by the bedside before flying to the main console, and queries it for details as he telekinetically slides it onto himself.

A second later he’s operating at full urgency again. Putting up sensors in the ruins of the old Institute had been Ororo’s idea, years ago, and had paid off a few times… the site has a certain ritual fascination for the new generation of mutant rebels and would-be rebels, and Warren has managed to get to a few of them before SHIELD does. This time the sensors are showing several signatures, including some fairly powerful ones, all of which seem to have appeared out of nowhere.

Which might suggest a group of rebels too green to be using concealment screens… though it’s more likely a trap. Doesn’t matter, I guess… we’ve got to go in anyway, and we always go in ready for action. He punches the button to assemble the on-duty squad and finishes fastening his uniform.

What’s up, boss?
Hopefully a rescue operation, Elliot. More likely a trap. Scan the Institute ruins, carefully, and let me know what you find. And light a fire under the rest of the on-duty team, will you?
Will do, boss!

A few seconds later, Vanisher appears in their staging area, bleary-eyed and still pulling his own uniform on, and starts studying the coordinates Warren relays to him through Elliot. Warren waits a few seconds while the rest of the team assembles, then nods. "Approach plan Gamma, on my mark. Three… two… one… mark!"

Their base dissolves around him, replaced by wide skies and thin air, and Warren lets himself drop about a thousand feet for velocity before flaring his wings and looking over the area.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh flies backwards through the air, propelling himself with his powers, as the wolf-girl takes a swipe at him. He hits the ground badly, and sprawls backwards onto his hands as Toni rushes into the room right past him. "Look out for..." He's cut off by a howl from the girl as Toni apparently makes contact.

Only a few minutes ago, he'd been about to go out and meet Warren in town for dinner. Somehow, Laurie's father and his allies had broken into the Institute for unknown reasons.

Probably to get to her and Gail, Josh thinks. He yanks a carpet out from underneath the wolf, who howls and begins to topple over. All of a sudden, everything seems to happen at once. Another unknown appears in the rec room, and advances towards where he'd seen Laurie and Illyana escape. A high-pitched shriek reaches his ears, and a strange energy field expands through the area. It's reminiscent of Illyana's teleportation ability, but different, somehow. "Toni, what's - - " Josh is cut off when his field of vision whites out.

Eventually, he opens his eyes, and sits up. It's dark out, but feels like the sun should be rising soon. Where the hell am I? There are jagged half-walls everywhere, and it looks like the area was totally destroyed at some point. Josh pulls himself off the ground and wanders a few paces. Where is everyone? There was enough rubble that the entire team could be scattered throughout the area.

Josh takes a fast breath in. Warren, where are you? Wherever they'd been transported, his link with Warren had been interrupted. Josh reaches out with his powers.

There he is. Warren was quite a ways up, flying to their location... but something was wrong. Different? Where were they? What was this place, and how could Warren already be on his way?

Maybe he'd been knocked out longer than he thought. Josh looks in vain for other team members, but quickly ducks in the shadow of a ruined wall in order to protect himself from whatever was out there.

Hey, down here.

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren feels the beginnings of a mental touch before the familiar insulating feeling of Elliot’s mental shield wrapping itself around his mind. Boss, one of these guys is a telepath – untrained c3 or semitrained c4, I’d say. Something familiar about him, too, but I can’t place it. He’s not attacking, just trying to link up with you… I think I can block him, but if you’re gonna do something better do it fast.

Warren frowns. For years after Josh’s death he’d been unwilling to accept any telepathic contact, but over time he’d learned to accept the need for it. It’s one advantage the Brotherhood had over SHIELD… their tech-boys had worked out how to build artificial mental screens, but artificial telepathy was still an iffy proposition at best… it gave the Brotherhood a communications network that couldn’t be intercepted and couldn’t be faked. But he doesn’t like it, and never has, and probably never will, especially with strangers. And he knows Elliot’s protection is an all-or-nothing thing… if he lets the contact through, he’s exposing his mind to mental attack.

On the other hand, if one of the tourists down there was an untrained c3 or higher, the Brotherhood could use that talent. There weren’t enough ‘paths to coordinate their efforts globally – especially not with Emma playing her own sick little games on the West Coast – and every one counted. That’s worth a lot of risk.

Abruptly, he decides to take it. OK, Elliot – keep him out of my head, I’ll go down and talk to him face-to-face. Tell the rest of the team to hang tight and Vanisher to be ready to pull me back if this goes south.

With Elliot’s aid he spots the guy almost immediately and drops. There are other figures scattered around the area, but he ignores them for the moment… and if it weren’t for gravity, he would have frozen in astonishment when the guy looked up.

What the -- Elliot, I thought you were keeping crap out! He’s got some kind of illusion going, he looks like Negatory, boss – no illusions, leastwise not psi. Cameras report the same, and image-match filter checks out: spitting image of your dead hubby, ‘xcept in his teens. I figure that’s either a straight shapeshifter or little Nate isn’t the only son yourDo yourself a favor and don’t ever finish that thought where I can overhear it. Keep shields up, I’m going down.[/color]

He drops fast and hard, not diving so much as falling, and doesn’t bother to put on the brakes – just lets his force-field absorb the impact when he hits, and steps out of the crater to close on the new arrival. "OK, whoever you are, you got my attention. Now either you show me your real face or I blow it off no matter what it looks like in three seconds… two… "

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh frowns. Some kind of telepath was preventing him from opening the telepathic link between himself and Warren. Josh reaches out with his powers momentarily, intent on splattering the (female?) presence against the nearest astral wall, when Warren finishes his flight and swoops down.

Too fast. As he nears the ground, Warren shows no intent on slowing down for a landing. He hits the ground, which kicks up a cloud of dirt and debris. Josh lets out a shout and stumbles forward.

"Warren? Oh my god, are you okay?" He hit the ground so fast... However, it was fairly plain that his telekinetic aura had protected him. But how? The two of them had been working together to strengthen it over the past year, but it was even more of a gradual process than his telepathy work with Jake.

Warren emerges from the crater, and says just about the last thing Josh ever thought would come out of his mouth.

> "OK, whoever you are, you got my attention. Now either you show me your real face or I blow it off no matter what it looks like in three seconds… two… "

Josh's jaw drops, and he shivers instinctively at the coldness in Warren's voice. Warren would never talk to me like that. "Um. Warren, what's going on? I was going to meet you for dinner and..." He trails off, noticing that Warren's appearance was rather different than when he'd left that morning. His hair was shaggy, as if he'd cut it himself, and significantly longer than before. Usually it was kept short and tidy, which invited Josh to run his fingers through it. No way I'm running my hand through that...

"Your hair..." He'd seen Warren shave and put hair gel in just that morning. His skin and body were much the same, but there was a tired weariness that he couldn't put his finger on. And what was he wearing?

Josh walks closer, wanting to touch Warren, to reassure himself that it was all real. Do I want this to be real? "Where am I, and why do you look different than when we woke up this morning?"

[Toni Craft]

So booms typically mean explosions. And explosions are fun. Lots of fun. But when the booms are taking place within the mansion, and they sound more like breaking stuff than exploding stuff, then things aren’t so fun. And there are yells and screams from startled kids and that can only mean bad things are about to happen to bad people.

Spitting the toothbrush and toothpaste foam into the sink as she hurdles out the door, Toni armours up, ready for the worst. She reaches the main stairs in a matter of seconds, and to save the time it would take to run down them, Toni just vaults over the railing and falls the two stories to the main entrance. The hardwood floors were going to be expensive to repair, but she was sure Jake would understand, especially if it was an actual emergency.

She sprints towards the sound of the clatter, her feet causing the tiled and hardwood floors to shatter and splinter. Toni hurls herself into the room and immediately locks herself onto her first target.

"Look out for..." The rest of Josh’s warning is lost under the deafening howl of the wolf-girl she’s just tackled across the room.

“Look out for my fine ass kickin’ some serious tooshy? Hell yeah!” She says grinning, pounding her iron fists together in a show of machoism. Unfortunately her flashy show goes unseen because of a blinding light followed by a sickening vertigo sensation.

Toni topples over and hits the ground hard. After shaking her head a few times, she looks down to see what she’s fallen on. “Oh boy...someone’s gonna hang me out to rust…” She grumbles, noting that whatever it was she landed on was completely pulverized. What Toni fails to realize for at least ten more seconds is that the lights have gone out and there’s a nice cool breeze floating by. “Wow...this is...different.” She stands and stares at her surroundings, confused by sudden appearance of rubble and destruction and dark and wind.

“Now either you show me your real face or I blow it off no matter what it looks like in three seconds… two… " It sounds like Warren, but it doesn’t sound like Warren…

"Where am I, and why do you look different than when we woke up this morning?" But that definitely sounds like Josh.

“Yo guys, I’m really sorry about the mess. I didn’t think I hit the wall that hard--woah...lookin’ spiffy there, Warr. Who’s your hair stylist? I’ve been meaning to get a trim done and what you’ve got looks right up my alley.” She says, stumbling through the rubble to meet up with her teammates. Toni stops to study Warren’s new appearance, then looks at Josh, then around her. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, my adorable gay X-buddies.”

[Jack Russell]

A loud slam richochets about the room as Jack heaves the couch over the floor, forcing a handful of assailants to disperse to avoid the flying object. One of the legs punctures a sizeable hole in the wall, although it's hardly big enough to really worry him. Newly transformed and singed from misplaced gunfire, he gives an aggravated snarl, taking a hard, backhanded swipe at the nearest of the attackers, sending the poor sap into the wall like the couch. Blood races through his ears, drowning out nearly everything around him. He had nearly jumped the entire flight of stairs after hearing the ruckus only moments before, and he knows it's wrong to want to hurt them, but it's his home, his den, and they deserve what's coming to them.

Every patch of fur on his spine is bristled, and Jack lunges over the top of a pile of disarrayed furniture, claws extended to grab the scrawny back of a red-head that has disappeared behind it, only managing to get a glimpse of his pale face before his brain feels like it's been dipped in liquid fire. His body is riveted in a shuddering vice, and he tightens his grip on the kid reflexively, his claws slicing delicate skin, and upon hearing the boy release a squeal of terror and pain, Jack lets go and tumbles backwards as the mental attack on his own mind suddenly ceases. He won’t have anymore problems with that guy.

The scent of blood tempts him, but he forcibly lets it go, turning to face one of the attackers that he missed with the couch. The female attacker retaliates with long, sharp bone, slicing his shoulder before he jerks to one side to grab her before she can stab his eye out with it. Jack lunges forward just as light spasms into his eyes, bright to the point of being sickening, and he shuts his eyes, his momentum continuing against nothing but air; the girl is gone.

He tries to pull his weight back to stop, but the crunch of bone and foundation lets him know that a partly dissembled wall did it for him.

Grunting, he rises from an uncomfortable surface of rubble, blinking hard and shaking his head to get rid of the colors shivering across his vision. Sniffing, Jack cocks one ear, slightly confused as he lets his eyes adjust to the dark. The scent of fear and confusion has all but vanished, and new scents float to him on a breeze.

What the hell? Jack peers over the pile of rubble he had collided with, easily bounding to the top of the wall to get a better look. Crouched, he gazes at three of his teammates assembled. Warren, though.. where did he come from? His shoulder tenses as it finishes up healing, new fur starting to grow from the hairline cut.

This doesn’t feel right.

Jack perks both his ears forward, listening. Yo guys, I’m really sorry about the mess. I didn’t think I hit the wall that hard--woah...lookin’ spiffy there, Warr. Who’s your hair stylist? I’ve been meaning to get a trim done and what you’ve got looks right up my alley. I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, my adorable gay X-buddies. Toni.

He grunts again--to himself. No kidding. Partly suspicious, but curious, he bounds from the wall to another pile of rubble, clambering up and down until he is close enough to shift mid-leap from a higher pile of rubble, his general appearence that of something gone terribly disarray.

”What the hell is going--..,” he trails a little and stops cold as he approaches, taking in the scent of tension. ..not good.

[Warren Worthington III]

> " Um. Warren, what's going on? I was going to meet you for dinner and... your hair... Where am I, and why do you look different than when we woke up this morning? "

The impersonation is perfect; voice, appearance, mannerisms Warren hasn’t seen or heard in ten years and which he doesn’t go through a day without remembering, and it slows him down. He knows this can’t possibly be Josh, he’d buried Josh… but he still can’t bring himself to strike. He takes a step back, uncertain, and becomes aware of another body approaching – a loud metal body that can only belong to one person.

Dammit, Elliot, I told everyone to hang back and await orders! You tell Fortress to high-tail her armored ass back to Hold that thought, boss… something weird’s going on. Fortress is at the base, this isn’t her… except I’m looking right at her brain and it is her… except she has no idea what’s going on; she thinks she and Josh were at the Institute a minute ago!

That makes Warren hesitate still further. Sure, they could be under some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion or even projecting illusory memories somehow, but why use such obviously false memories? Maybe they’re some kind of failed cloning experiment that somehow escaped, or… he gives up speculating, unable to think of anything plausible.

> " Yo guys, I’m really sorry about the mess. I didn’t think I hit the wall that hard--woah...lookin’ spiffy there, Warr. Who’s your hair stylist? I’ve been meaning to get a trim done and what you’ve got looks right up my alley. I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, my adorable gay X-buddies."

What’s wrong with my hair? he thinks absurdly, before his attention is further distracted by yet another arrival, whom he recognizes as another resurrected corpse. Boss, you are not going to believe who Jack Russell. Well, OK, I guess you are.

"OK, I’m really NOT in the mood for fun and games here. Who are you people and why do you look like dead X-Men and what do you want?"

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> "I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, my adorable gay X-buddies."

"Toni! We're..." Josh waves vaguely at their surroundings, looking completely relieved that someone, at least, wasn't acting absolutely insane. "I don't know where we are, but Warren's..." He trails off again. Warren's... I don't know what's wrong with Warren. It feels like a fist clenches his heart as he thinks the thought, and rapidly, Josh's eyes start filling with tears.

> "OK, I’m really NOT in the mood for fun and games here. Who are you people and why do you look like dead X-Men and what do you want?"

What?! Josh's jaw drops again. "What are you talking about? What the hell is wrong with you? I'm your husband!" His tears are flowing freely now, and he stumbles towards Warren, as if to slug him. Instead, he becomes wobbly on his feet, and tips into Warren's arms. He shakes his head vehemently.

"We started dating at a stupid rave in Connecticut. The first time we had sex was on your 20th birthday, and I was scared to death. You asked me to marry you on the beach in Golden Gate Park. I fell asleep on our wedding night. When you were little, you tried to pull out your wings with pliers. I told you they were sexy, and you told me that your codename only sounds right when I say it. You like to cuddle after sex, and you hate the sound of trucks backing up, because they sound like your alarm clock." All of this comes out of Josh in a tumble, and he pushes ineffectually at Warren. "This isn't funny, you idiot!" His face is wet with tears.

[Toni Craft]

”What the hell is going--..,” Toni catches the appearance of Jack out of the corner of her eye, but remains focused on Warren and Josh. Warren, however, seems a little more confused.

"OK, I’m really NOT in the mood for fun and games here. Who are you people and why do you look like dead X-Men and what do you want?" She cocks an eyebrow.

“Dead? Beg pardon? Dude. We were all alive and kickin’ it this mornin’ when I saw you at breakfast.” Toni’s getting even more confused, but Josh is to the point of panicking, and he eventually does...kind of.

"What are you talking about? What the hell is wrong with you? I'm your husband!" And then he’s off crying and rambling on about their sex life and alarm clocks. Feeling more than a little out of place and pretty awkward, Toni takes a step back and stands beside Jack. She exchanges looks between him and Josh’s teary scene, then pokes him a few times in the arm.

“You’re not dead, right? ‘Cause that’d suck….Wait! Poke me! Am I dead? I don’t wanna be dead! Especially if being dead means I have to listen to their sappy crying ‘Oh my god just love me already!’ asses for the rest of eternity.” Toni makes a face at that thought. “At least you’re dead with me!” She says grinning, wrapping an arm around the other professor’s shoulders. “But I’m pretty sure my collection of board games got left behind, so eternity’s gonna be a little boring, I’m afraid.”

[Warren Worthington III]

As Josh – or whoever this is wearing his body – stumbles towards Warren, en years of combat-honed instincts scream at him to avoid physical contact.

He ignores them and lets Josh fall into his arms. Later, he’ll tell himself it’s because he knew, somehow, that this was really Josh. The truth is, after ten years of searching desperately for something or someone to fill the void Josh’s death left behind, he’s willing to settle for a convincing approximation.

The spill of details is a bizarre mix of intimate and pedestrian, and somehow more convincing than a more organized presentation would be. Even the weird bit about his alarm clock, which isn’t actually true, is somehow compelling – and then Warren remembers his old alarm clock, the one that was destroyed with the Institute, which did sound just like a truck… and he shivers.

> " This isn't funny, you idiot! "

He takes a step back as Josh shoves him, caught between the urge to hold him again and the urge to fly away as fast as possible. This is insane. It simply isn’t possible! He can’t really be… they can’t all be…

But every sense is telling him otherwise, flooding him with memories of the last good time. Fortress’ inane chatter is the same as it was before she lost her brother and her husband, before things got serious, and he remembers how much it used to annoy him on missions and he’s surprised by how comforting it is.

Um… boss? Team’s getting a little antsy here, waiting for orders. What’s the plan?

Elliot’s mental voice drags him back to the present, reminds him of his responsibilities. Much as he might like to, he can’t let himself give in to comforting nostalgia in the middle of a war zone. OK. I don’t know who these people really are…… and all at once he’s glad that his mental link with her is superficial, that she can only pick up on the thoughts he chooses to transmit, because otherwise she’d know how much of a lie that is, …but until we figure it out there’s no way I let Drake get his icy little hands on them. Can’t risk bringing them back to the base, though… who knows what kinds of tracers they’ve got built in? So here’s the plan: tell Vanisher to ‘port us over to Beta Site – me and these three to start with, and any other throwbacks who turn up. Then you get in touch with everyone you can who dates back to the Institute and find out if they’ve experienced anything similar. Do not, repeat NOT, activate any links between Alpha and Beta sites… we keep these guys quarantined until we know exactly what’s going on, all communication by ‘port and ‘path for now. Clear? Roger dodger, boss... on it. Big V is warming up now; launch in 20...

"OK. I don’t know what’s going on, but this is NOT the place to have this conversation… SHIELD will be after us sooner or later." He winces for a moment, realizing that if these kids think the Institute is still up and around they probably still think of SHIELD as the good guys, and holds up a hand to forestall objections. "No, that’s not a good thing. Things aren’t the way they used to be. Hang on, this can be disorienting the first time…. 3… 2… now."

The ruins of the Institute fade away around them and are replaced by the reinforced stone walls of Beta Site. Warren makes a mental note to start looking for a replacement Beta now that this one’s been compromised… with a little luck, they won’t need to bug out for a while yet.

"Sit tight just a second," he says, turning the site’s power grid from standby to full and listening carefully to the equipment gearing smoothly up to full operating mode, then nods. " OK, we should be safe here for now. Now, supposing you explain to me exactly what’s going on?"

(( OOC note: Anyone who wants to RP at the Institute site after this point go ahead and start a new thread there. RP getting ported here whenever you want (or not at all, if you want to RP exploring the futureverse on your own). Or just let the arrival-and-porting happen off-camera and start posting on this thread. Or, you know, whatever’s fun.))

[Jack Russell]

OK, I’m really NOT in the mood for fun and games here. Who are you people and why do you look like dead X-Men and what do you want? Josh's distress is apparent to even Jack, the odor of frustration and salt almost overpowering. "Dead?" he repeats, more confused than aghast, in the same manner of 'um, excuse me?'. Just then Toni steps back beside him and starts poking a little hard at his arm. You’re not dead, right? ‘Cause that’d suck….Wait! Poke me! Am I dead? I don’t wanna be dead! Especially if being dead means I have to listen to their sappy crying ‘Oh my god just love me already!’ asses for the rest of eternity. At least you’re dead with me!

"Er..," Jack blinks and edges away slightly, still trying to make heads or tails of the situation. "Pretty sure we're not dead," he adds with a low murmur, looking on at Josh and Warren again. Certain that he's not going to be much help in a lovers' dilemma, he turns his head and scans the area, testing the air. It smells familiar, as though it's something that used to be something else. Whatever it is--or was--he doesn't like it.

OK. I don’t know what’s going on, but this is NOT the place to have this conversation… SHIELD will be after us sooner or later.[/i] SHIELD? Jack opens his mouth but shuts it again. No, that’s not a good thing. Things aren’t the way they used to be. Hang on, this can be disorienting the first time…. 3… 2… now. A pulse of vertigo crawls over Jack's brain, and he stiffens involuntarily while the scene around them fades. Stone walls replace the stretch of ground, and for a moment he's reminded of a cage.

Sit tight just a second. His animal instincts telling him otherwise, Jack does as he's told. Sure, this is totally strange and weird, but Warren's still Warren. Isn't he? The chirrup and whirring of electronics shifts his focus, and he watches as Warrne turns back from the equipment he's tinkering with. OK, we should be safe here for now. Now, supposing you explain to me exactly what’s going on?

"Well, uh..," Jack speaks up first, indicating Josh and then Warren with his head. "I don't think it's us that should be explaining."

[Toni Craft]

“Elliot?” Toni asks, leaning on the table next to where the resident telepath is sitting.

“Yeah, boss numero dos?” She asks, looking up, her face distant due to all the mind chatter going on inside her head.

“Have Mr. V beam me over there, will ya?”

“But Warren said that you were supposed to stay here.” Elliot protests, shaking her head.

“Yeah, and then he said Jack was there. So get Vanisher to teleport me over.”

She hesitates but nods. Best not to cross the iron maiden when her dead not-quite-husband is mentioned. “Yes, ma’am.” The walls around Toni melt away into the darker interior of Beta Zone.

--------------------------------------------------------

"OK, we should be safe here for now. Now, supposing you explain to me exactly what’s going on?"

"I don't think it's us that should be explaining."

“Jeez, Warren. You weren’t kidding. These guys look really convincing.” Toni says, folding her arms as she appears next to her superior. Jack looked exactly like he had all those years ago; before they started dating or had kids or started this whole massive fighting thing. It was extremely tempting to just accept him as the real Jack and smother him with one of her massive hugs. She resists and looks at the other imposters. “Wow...even I look like me.”

“Holy fuckin’ jumpin’ jackass tomatoes! I’m me! But...but...I’m old!” The younger Toni yells, bouncing back a few feet and pointing in astonishment.

“Sounds like me too!” Her older counterpart says with a bit of a laugh. The area to the left of Josh suddenly thickens, and with a quiet burping noise, Matthew appears, eyes wide and face slightly green (fortunately not the radioactive type green).

“I think I’m gonna hurl.” He groans, leaning against the wall as he coughs, the world spinning around a few times before things settle into a reasonable form of normal.

“Okay, now this is turning into a really sick joke.” Toni hisses, clenching her fists at the sight of her dead brother. Matthew looks at Warren, then at Toni, then at the other Toni.

“Ummm...what?”

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> "OK. I don’t know what’s going on, but this is NOT the place to have this conversation… SHIELD will be after us sooner or later. […] No, that’s not a good thing. Things aren’t the way they used to be. Hang on, this can be disorienting the first time…. 3… 2… now."

The feel of Warren’s arms around him is just like it should be… but more tentative, somehow. Probably because you just went off the deep end! Josh shakes his head slightly, and swipes a hand over his tear-streaked face. “Things aren’t the way they used to be? What…” Suddenly, the pieces were beginning to fall into place. Things not the same as they used to be? Warren was different, as well… No. There’s no way. But he’s…. and he said… Dead… Josh gulps.

As Warren begins the countdown, Josh holds on tightly. Their surroundings vanish and are replaced with some kind of military base. Suddenly, he feels slightly stupid. Toni and Jack had just witnessed his little freak-out. Toni was one thing… she sort of thrived off inanity. But Jack was one of the new teachers, and they didn’t know him that well. He lets his arms drop off and steps back, sitting on an equipment crate.

> OK, we should be safe here for now. Now, supposing you explain to me exactly what’s going on?

“I don’t know why you're so different all of a sudden, but it’s obvious something weird is going on.” Josh bites his lip. “Two days ago, you, Laurie, and I drove to her house and saved her mother from her father, who is apparently the new leader of the Brotherhood. Tonight, he broke into the Institute and a fight ensued. Somehow, we’re here.” Josh scrutinizes Warren. If was he was suspecting was true… Warren hadn’t aged a bit. But it can’t be!

After a moment, Josh looks up from the ground, almost afraid to talk. “Warren… what year is it?”

> “Holy fuckin’ jumpin’ jackass tomatoes! I’m me! But...but...I’m old!”

The years - no, it’s not possible - showed a bit more on Toni. But it was still obvious that it was her. “How is this possible?” Josh locks eyes with the Toni familiar to him. Even more jarring to him was that Warren was right next to him… but he couldn’t really feel him. That ubiquitous telepath was blocking off their link. Suddenly, the telepath's mental signature was unmistakable.

Elliot? “Elliot? From the Brotherhood?” Josh shakes his head in exasperation. “Elliot, quit jamming me or I’ll splatter you against the wall.” His voice sounds annoyed, and he projects the sentiment mentally, unsure of Eliot’s exact location.

At this point, Matthew blinks into existence. Josh eyes him. Are you Matty-Matty or... He looked the same as before, but then again...

[Christopher Bertrand]

"And so, if you drag your pointer over the small screen that you have just programmed, and press it, you will notice that a graph showing the fluctuations in-" his lesson, and with it his moment of absolute bliss, is cut off as the alarm flares off. It is not hard to find the exact place of disturbance, being connected to the Institute's vast computer network and having been siphoning information from it for the past week.

The computers all show a very fast succession of windows, and then turn off. Already half-way through the door, Chris lets out a sentence, "Your work is saved, go to your rooms unless you are part of the team..." the words echo in the classroom as the students pick up their things and quickly start scampering, not able to see the cyberpath any more.

In his usual quick stride, his long legs bring him to the place shortly, although most of the action is already half-way done. He himself has been taking many different courses as far as self-defense and combat went, and was improving at it critically. Apparently, he has just the correct mind set for aikido, which requires calmness and calculation to a point. High-speed calculus seems to help a lot.

There is not, however, a single movement that he makes before he senses a large flux of energies being detected on the Institute's monitoring systems, and then everything fades out.

Opening his eyes suddenly, he finds himself among ruins. A migraine of unimaginable proportions floods over him as he hopelessly seeks out the computer connections he had just a second ago, and a pain much similar to what one might imagine having their brain plugged out of their skull occurs quickly, alongside the migraine.

He opens his eyes very slowly, but manages to get only one, two, maybe three glances around the area before he senses a mechanical presence, grasps hopefully for it, becomes amazed at the advanced level at which it is built, and then disappears from the area to shimmer into existence in a sort of military base. Again, the cyberpathic contact is lost.

He looks around, seeing Josh, Jack, Toni, Toni again, Matthew, and what seems to be a merely marginally older version of Warren although it might just be the shadows playing. Closer inspection reveals that one of the Tonis is older-looking as well. He feels several mechanical pulses around him, but his thoughts are too distracted by the problem at hand to try and attach to them.

His mind needs hard logic, and all of a sudden it seems to be completely banned from being imported into the country, and so all he manages to grasp for as a stabilizer is a sort of muddy-mushy-sort-of-slightly-but-not-really-semi-viscous version of it. The veins in his neck, and quite a few on his forehead, and all over his face, seem to bulge up from the thought processes going on under them, and for a moment it is as if the cyberpath is about ready to burst in a bleeding fireworks show.

A few words muttered, even fewer intelligible, "movement...space...continuum...mistake... imaginary... readings... time?" and he finally receives a memory both beneficial and welcome. His hands move to his trouser pockets, and pull out a cigarette and a lighter. He shoves the cigarette into his mouth, lights it within mere moments, and then takes a breath so deep it seems he intends to choke himself.

Through his mouth a large cloud of smoke emerges, but he does not hesitate, and the cigarette is being drawn from again. His hand is shaking, as well as the rest of his body, but it all subsides, along with the veins, as he finishes the cigarette and quickly lights another one.

A half minute passes, and three cigarettes have been put out. Finally, he regains his composure, and stands up from his crouching position, where he dropped shortly after arriving, running his one finger along imaginary lines and numbers in the floor.

He looks up silently at each member, and then comes nearer to Josh, finding him to be the most stabile and familiar of the group, although not all that. "Teleportaion by technology was deemed possible within ten years of careful research... by taking account of the potential resource deficits, add six years onto it, an average proven through history. At its starting phase it would be very crude, but would grow quickly...that adds a few more years to the calculation. A helper constant is the "age" which one can find on her face," he points to older-looking Toni, not showing any intention of stopping his monologue. " and the state of things around us is that of a run-down place of war, or was before we were transfered again. Wars were pending in the community, so I am running that equation as well..." he pauses for a slight moment, closing his eyes, and then opens them after a second.

"The surges of energy running through the attacked area were great, and this all suggests one of three options: We have all fallen victim to a major mental attack surge. The second one would be a conjoined hallucination in which our minds threw us at the inability to deal with so much energy present, or..." he pauses to rethink what he is about to say, but decides to go ahead with it.

"Or we are currently situated in year 2030, give or take three years due to averages, rounding, and significant figures."

[Warren Worthington III]

> “ Well, uh… I don't think it's us that should be explaining.”

"No? Well, somebody’d better. Or do you expect me to believe you’re really Jack Russell, and the last ten years was just some kind of unfortunate misunderstanding? Do you even know what I had to do to Jack?" Warren is trying to maintain some semblance of calm, but mostly failing.

When Fortress appears, he looks back and forth between the two carefully. There’s no way he could confuse them… 20 years, three children, two funerals and an extra 500 pounds of iron make a noticeable difference… but the longer he stares at the new arrival, the more she reminds him of Toni from the old days.

> " I don’t know why you're so different all of a sudden, but it’s obvious something weird is going on. Two days ago, you, Laurie, and I drove to her house and saved her mother from her father, who is apparently the new leader of the Brotherhood. Tonight, he broke into the Institute and a fight ensued. Somehow, we’re here."

Warren blinks at that – he remembers the incident, it was right after Drake got himself shattered into bits the first time, and they’d first discovered Primer’s identity and his connection to Wallflower… but that was twenty years ago!

> " Warren… what year is it? "

Apparently Josh is just figuring it out, himself. OK… that at least explains why they’re all so damned confused. They really do think it’s 2007. His response is interrupted by a mental alert -- Boss… you ain’t gonna like this, but there’s another blast from the past headed your way. Maybe two, or maybe Computer Boy’s finally decided to get his head in the game, his mind’s too weird for me to be sure. Anyway… headsup!

Warren isn’t even surprised anymore by Warhead’s arrival… it seems he’s being haunted by the ghost of every X-Man who has died on his watch. It’s the sort of twisted mental torture Frost and Wyngarde would come up with – and, granted, this whole scenario could be an illusion, but he set up contingency plans for that sort of sneak attack years ago. If that’s the situation his team will break him out soon enough; in the meantime he has to assume this is really happening.

Meanwhile Josh – or whoever that really is, he reminds himself forcefully – seems to tune in a little more closely to Elliot’s mental presence.

> " Elliot? From the Brotherhood? Elliot, quit jamming me or I’ll splatter you against the wall."

"No. Her mental defenses are on my orders and they stay up for now, until I understand what’s going on." He looks around at the new arrivals and makes a decision. "OK. I’m going to accept that you guys are sincere about who you think you are and when you think it is. I need you to accept that you’re wrong. It’s – "

Incoming, part 2! Bertrand’s arrival interrupts his little lecture, and it takes Warren a little while to decide that it’s not the cyberpathic hermit he knows, but rather another atavism. He holds off finishing his briefing speech until the guy’s analysis is done, wondering if it will reveal anything new – Bertrand was often surprising that way, a single gem of brilliant insight buried in a ton of what seems like trivia – but shakes his head impatiently when it doesn’t.

"Right. October of 2027, to be a little more precise." If the situation weren’t so morbidly serious he’d be amused that Bertrand had worked that out from such a complex derivation, instead of just referencing a local system clock… on the other hand, system clocks can be faked.

"So, as I was saying… I’m going to accept that you guys really believe you are who you say you are, and that you really don’t remember anything after 2007. And if you’ll agree to let us run some tests to confirm it I’ll provisionally accept that your genetic scans will match up with our records: one tactically impaired shapeshifter I’ll believe, five is stretching it.

My working theory is that someone got his hands on genetic samples of the original X-Men and is growing clones… maybe they figure the Brotherhood needs new recruits, or something. How they’ve managed to impart cloned memory beats me, I didn’t think that was possible – then again, there are enough mutants out there doing impossible things that isn’t saying a lot, and I’m no scientist. Hell, maybe Blackburn developed a new twist on his mutant-genome-manipulating power, who knows?

Anyway, my point is, until we know for sure where you come from, who sent you here, and why, we’re going to have to treat you very carefully, keep an eye out for implanted bombs and post-hypnotic suggestions and who-knows-what. I’ll do my best to keep you comfortable and occupied – starting with catching you up on the history you’re missing – but…" he shrugs his wings apologetically, "I suppose I might as well say this bluntly and avoid confusion. You’re welcome to stay here as my guests until we figure out the situation, but guests or not you’re going to stay here until we figure out the situation. Is that clear?"