Sanctuary Part 8:

Surrounded

The Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, Salem Center NY

Scott rubbed his forehead since his temples were covered by his visor. He had been so busy these days rushing between the Institute and rescues that he had stopped taking off his visor until he was ready to retire for the night. He was exhausted and his mind raced about the future of this school and of all of mutant-kind. It was hard to grade the Summer Semester math papers that sat before him, waiting to be judged. A knock sounded from his door, stirring him from his tumultuous thoughts.

"Come in!" He barked in a hard voice. Every disturbance was an inconvenience right now, he was so far behind on his school work.

"Hello, Scott," Jean came peeking into his office.

"I'm sorry, Jean," Scott sighed in frustration with himself. He never wanted to take out his frustrations on Jean. "Come in, come in."

"I know we're all running ragged right now, but I need to talk with you," Jean greeted him with a kiss on his forehead and then circled behind him and began to massage his shoulders.

"Are you reading my mind again?" Scott asked, half-joking.

"I know you well enough," Jean said in mock offense. "Besides, I think the entire team is thinking the same thing."

"I knew that when the Professor sent out that invitation that our lives would change, but I was hoping he would recruit some new team members from the refugees. I mean, a bunch of them used to be X-Men anyway."

"Would you really want Calvin back on the team?" Jean asked with a smirk as she stopped massaging him and took a seat across from him.

"Good point," Scott made a face of revulsion that made Jean laugh brightly. He and Calvin had been rivals since the moment they had met and it had only gotten worse until Calvin left. "Certainly, though, we could convince Polaris, Forge, or Dazzler to get back on the team."

"They all left the team for their own reasons," Jean reminded him. "Perhaps they are not ready to come back."

"That's not good enough, Jean, all of mutant-kind is at stake, how can they sit on the sidelines?"

"You'd have to ask them."

"I'm sorry, Jean, you came here to talk to me about something and all I can do is piss and moan. What's going on?"

"Well, normally I would go to the Professor for this but he's been tied up helping a bunch of refugees all day."

"What is it?"

"I am not sure what it is but something is wrong. All-day I've been feeling a buzz, almost like static, like a large group of people are using psi-dampeners, but I checked all of the refugees and it isn't coming from any of them."

"Are there any telepaths amongst the refugees?"

"Not that I know of."

"Have you talked to Rachel about this?"

"Not yet, I wanted to talk to you first, I'm worried this might be some sort of new anti-telepathy device or something the government has employed because of the assassination."

"Let's just go and see if Rachel has been experiencing the same thing. If she has then let's interrupt whatever it is the Professor is doing. We can't afford to ignore anything right now, even just a weird feeling."

"Thanks, Scott," Jean smiled in relief, despite knowing better part of Jean had feared he would have dismissed her feelings as nothing more than paranoia. Somehow she just knew this was something important. "Rachel's out by the lake, I can go myself, you can get back to your work."

"I need a break," Scott shook his head and stood. "This is just the excuse I need to enjoy some time with you, Jean."

Jean smiled and leaned against Scott, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they left his office. He kissed the top of her head and she smiled even wider. She was lucky to have him in her life.

They made their way through the mansion making passing conversation with both Storm and Iceman who happened to cross their path. The other two X-Men stayed in the mansion as Jean and Scott made their way to the lake. It really was too small to be called a lake, more like a large and very deep pond. There was even a lake house where a small boat and various other nautical supplies were stored.

There were a group of young mutants all clustered on the small dock that went out into the lake. Some of them were in swimsuits while others were there reading or laughing with their friends. Rachel was one of the students reading. Rachel was a very special case for the X-Men. She hailed, much like Switchback, from a dark and terrible future. Instead of Apocalypse being the ruler supreme of most of the world in Rachel's world it was the Sentinels, robotic mutant hunters. Rachel herself had even been captured and turned into a Hound, brainwashed mutants who were programmed into hunting down their own kind. Strangest of all for Jean and Scott personally was that she was their future daughter, or at least the daughter of some version of themselves. It was strange even by the X-Men's high standards of weird.

"Hello, Rachel," Scott said awkwardly as they approached. Rachel looked up from her book, a modern history book. She had been trying to spot the differences between her world and theirs. She had been sure for quite some time that she and their worlds were one and the same. She was pretty sure now that that wasn't the case. For example, Robert Kelly was still alive.

"Hello, da- Mr. Summers," Rachel said, equally awkward.

"Rachel," Jean began to explain why they had come to see, however she was interrupted by a loud booming noise. She and Scott whirled around to see Sam, aka Cannonball, flying straight toward them.

"Mr. Summers! Mr. Summers!" They could hear Sam shouting even over his loud blasting energy, there was panic in his voice.

"Sam!" Scott shouted. He held up his hands to prepare for the boy's always bad landing, he was still heading straight for them. At the last second, the boy dove to the left and plunged into the lake, fully clothed. Some of the other students squealed with surprise as water splashed all over them.

"Mr. Summers!" Sam spluttered as he got back to the surface of the water. "It's my family!"

Not wanting to waste time Jean telekinetically lifted the teen from the water and settled him down in front of her and Scott.

"What's happened with your family?" Scott asked.

"I was just talking to them on the phone," Sam explained. "My mom had decided my brothers and sisters would be safer here and was on her way here when they were stopped by an entire squad of police cars. All I could hear was them screaming at my family then the phone went dead."

"Do you know where they were at the time?" Scott asked as the three immediately began making their way back to the mansion, Rachel staring after them in confusion.

"No idea," Sam's voice was trembling, something rare for the ballsy young Southerner. His family meant everything to him.

Less than five minutes later the X-Men that were currently at the mansion, Warren and Logan were off in Manhattan on personal business, had all gathered on the grounds in front of the mansion. Xavier was with them.

"I've asked Forge and Polaris to watch the mansion while we are gone," Xavier told Scott as Portal began opening a gateway for them. "We don't know what kind of situation we will be walking into but Lucinda is in grave danger as are all of her children, I will be coming with you."

Scott simply nodded. "Colossus, you take point just in case they start firing on the portal, we can't have any stray bullets come through to hurt the students. Jean, Storm, you both go right behind to assess the situation, we'll be right behind you but stay behind Colossus until you know it is safe." With that, the X-Men, one by one, disappeared through the portal.

Sam stood watching at the mansion's doorstep, he had been barred from joining them to help his family. His glaring eyes and clenched jaw told exactly how he felt about the situation.

Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane, Westchester County, NY

Dr. Ashley Kafka was one of the world's leading authorities of the unique psychosis that can come with being superhuman. She was given almost complete free-reign to work with superhuman criminals in any way she pleased at the Ravencroft Institute, a psychiatric facility with a dark history. She was determined to be the bright spot in the Institute's history that turned it into a place where they could truly help superhuman criminals. Too bad she might not live long enough to make that happen.

"I can see your destiny," said the weird mutant woman to her side. The criminal wore a gold plated mask on a large silver helmet, her criminal outfit was blue and tight-fitting with a long flowing blue cape. Dr. Kafka had no idea who the woman was. "It will be either very short or very bright."

"You should listen to the woman," now Kafka knew exactly who that was speaking to her, known mutant terrorist, Mystique. The blue-skinned woman was pointing a gun directly at her forehead. Her orderlies had simply vanished thanks to the tattooed man behind Mystique, Kafka could have sworn she had seen him before, but couldn't place him. They had simply appeared in her office, disposed of her security in seconds, and then pointed a gun at her.

"What do you want?"

"Smart girl," Mystique smirked. "You have a new inmate here that I want to see."

"They're not inmates, they're patients," Kafka corrected.

Mystique rolled her eyes. "Fine, where is your patient known as Sabretooth," she said with a sneer.

"I'll take you to him," Dr. Kafka volunteered.

"I don't think so," Mystique pressed the gun hard against Kafka's forehead, causing the psychiatrist to strain her neck.

"He's in the main tower, the second floor from the top, room 1207," Kafka said in a strained voice.

Mystique began to squeeze the trigger. "Don't ruin a pretty face like that," Destiny piped up. "She might still be of some use to us."

Mystique rolled her eyes again. "Fine." She pulled the gun away from Dr. Kafka's forehead then flipped it in her hand and clocked the psychiatrist across the head with the butt of the pistol. Dr. Kafka went down with a thump and didn't move.

"Let's go!" Mystique turned to Vanisher. "You heard the woman, can you get me there?"

"Easy," Vanisher grabbed his female cohorts on their shoulders and the three disappeared.

They reappeared on the second floor from the top.

"For a place that is so concerned with calling their prisoners patients, the cells look like any other prison," Vanisher noted as they began to look around for 'Room 1207'.

"There," Destiny pointed.

"Creed, are you in there?" Mystique called out as they approached the barred iron door marked '1207' in sickly green letters.

"Mystique? I thought I was going crazy when I caught your scent," came a rough voice from inside. "You here to bust me out?"

"Well, we won't be doing any busting, but we'll get you out," Mystique sounded disappointed.

Vanisher disappeared, then in three seconds reappeared with the huge muscle-bound feral blonde who called himself Sabretooth. "Who's he?" He jabbed a thumb at Vanisher.

"Don't eat him, he's our getaway transport," Mystique said, half-serious.

The prisoners were all crying out in anger or desperation, some of them pleading for them to be taken too. Some of them were even threatening, but the four mutants ignored the noise.

"Alright, I know this won't come without a price so what is it before we get outta here?"

"We need you to help us track someone down."

"Who?"

"We don't know her name, but we believe she might be the daughter of Wolverine."

With that Sabretooth's eyes narrowed and growled, a deep rumbling issued from his chest. "So the runt went and got himself a weakness. Do we get to kill her once we find her?"

"That depends on whose side she's on," Mystique told him. "Afterall, she's the one who killed the President."

Sabretooth looked shocked at this statement. "So his little girl is an assassin, even better." Sabretooth grinned wickedly before they all vanished without a trace. The remaining prisoners groaned or cursed, but they had no idea how bad they actually had it, Kafka wouldn't wake for several more hours and all of her staff had been teleported thousands of miles away and it was lunchtime.

The Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, Salem Center NY

Just on the edge of the grounds of the School was a thick beautiful forest that Beast often took his students to when studying Horticulture or Biology. It was a great place for students to hide away from the prying eyes of their teachers, though of course, no one could really escape from Professor Xavier or Ms. Grey. Right now it was being used by someone else to escape notice. Eight men dressed in camo uniforms with heavy military weaponry strapped to their armored bodies crouched, hidden, at the edge of the forest watching as the X-Men disappeared one by one.

"Could they have discovered us?" One of them whispered to the man who was obviously in charge. "Is this a trap?"

"No," the man sitting at the front with a pair of binoculars negated without even looking at his soldier. "We all have the latest in psi-dampening equipment and no one has come close to the forest."

"Should we close in now?"

"No, there are over five-hundred yards between us and the main building, when we make a run for it we will be noticed and we have no idea what kind of powers the rest of these mutants have. Let's be sure the X-Men are fully gone. Once we do I want Salvador to take out that mutant who made the portal for them, we can't have them all escaping."

There was silence as the men waited and watched. The man who had opened the portal for the X-Men kept the portal open, not a good sign. They were going to have to take him out fast. Most of the students and refugees that had come outside to see the X-Men off had wandered back into the mansion. It was now or never.

"Salvador."

"On it, sir," their resident sniper took aim. Blam! While he still had a silencer attached to it his large-barrelled gun still made a sharp report. Portal fell, the swirling energy portal he had maintained disappeared. With that, the soldiers charged forward, guns at the ready.

"Joseph!" Switchback cried out. She had been standing just out of the soldiers' view behind a tree.

Bullets sprayed against the mansion walls behind her as she dove for her only friend in the world. She crawled military style the rest of the way to Joseph and let out a choked sound of relief when she heard his ragged breathing. He was alive! She grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him toward the mansion, more shots were fired.

"Let us help!" three identical men burst out of the mansion door and grabbed Joseph as well.

"Come on!" Someone called from the doorway. They practically ran, holding Joseph between the four of them. Another shot rang out and one of the men dropped to the cement patio. Switchback hesitated.

"It's okay, keep going!" The two remaining lookalikes barked and they finally fell through the doorway as more shots rang out. Someone slammed the door behind them. Switchback started tearing at Joseph's armor to get to the wound.

"We left someone out there!" Switchback shouted another man crouched down to help her. This one was a Native American just like Joseph, but he had several obviously cybernetic limbs. Switchback couldn't remember his name but at the moment she didn't really care.

"Don't worry about it, he was just a dupe," one of his lookalikes told her. She didn't understand what that meant but she was happy to focus only on Joseph for a moment.

Finally, they ripped off the blooded undershirt that Joseph wore under his armor, revealing a nasty wound in his chest.

"Activate all defenses, we are under attack!" the man helping her with Joseph shouted at the other adults who were milling around them. No one said anything in reply. The cyborg glared up at everyone around them.

"Someone go get Polaris or Dazzler, they'll get it done."

"On it!" one of the men who had helped her dashed off, as he ran he slammed his fists together and three copies of himself popped into existence. If she weren't busy trying to save Joseph's life she would have been impressed. Instead, she was berating herself for not using her powers sooner to save Joseph from the bullet, now it was too late.

An explosion ripped through the entryway. The front door flew violently through the air in hundreds of pieces. The soldiers came pouring through the gaping hole where the door had been. Blam! A shot caught the cyborg right between the eyes, he slumped over Joseph, dead.

It may or may not be too late to save Joseph but it wasn't too late to save the cyborg. With a mere thought, time stopped around Switchback. She wasn't able to move or do anything just like everyone else at the moment. Her mutant power allowed her to travel back ten seconds in her own timeline and resume from there. She watched as the soldiers retreated backwards through the gaping hole, the door pieces lifted back into the air, and flew back into the shape of a door. The cyborg thankfully was alive again and shouting in reverse, the sound was so strange and yet familiar to Switchback. This was far from her first time using her powers.

She picked Joseph back up and stumbled back outside with the two, now three, men's help. Then they left her and went running backwards into the mansion then all movement stopped. It was time.

"Let us help!" The three men joined her in carrying Joseph to the mansion. Before she could say anything the dupe was dropped by a bullet. This time she didn't hesitate and in fact, pushed harder. They stumbled into the mansion and the door once again slammed shut behind them.

The cyborg made his way over, but this time was going to be different. "He can help me," Switchback pointed at the duplicating man. "You need to get the defenses on, now!" Forge nodded and ran.

Shots rang out this time, no explosion, no splintering door. She glanced out at the patio and saw one of the soldiers lying dead in his own blood, the others were hiding behind various objects. Good.

"These guys are armed to the teeth," a big thick man with a giant pair of wings joined her and the duplicating man in the entryway as they pulled off Joseph's undershirt again.

"It looks like his armor stopped the bullet from getting too deep," the dupe guy told her. Switchback breathed out in relief, she wanted to sob a little, to cry, but there was no time for that now. They were still under attack.

"The name's Madrox, by the way," the duplicating man said as he pulled a pocket knife from his jeans. He stuck the knife in the side of the bullethole and with an unconscious groan from Joseph a large chunk of the bullet came free.

"Mimic's right," Forge said as he returned to the room with two women by his side. One was a pretty blonde with some of her hair dyed in streaks of blue and pink. The other had almost lime green hair to match her astonishingly green eyes. Switchback had seen them around the mansion, they had seemed close to the X-Men. "The mansion won't be able to hold them back for very much longer on its own, they are too well-armed. We need a plan."

"If Joseph were still conscious we would have a much better shot," Switchback spoke up, but I don't even know what any of you can do. Well, other than duplicate man over here."

"It's Madrox," the man reminded her.

"They were gonna blow up the door and just charge in before the defenses went up, so I think they are having to change their plans."

"How do you know that?" the man called Mimic asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"Because it already happened before I changed things," Switchback dismissed. "We don't have time for this."

"You changed what happened in the past?" the cyborg asked. "Why not stop Joseph from getting shot?"

"I have a ten-second limit," Switchback shook her head.

"Don't be too hard on her," Joseph's cracked voice said. Switchback whirled around to look at him in surprise. "She's not even from this Earth."

"Joseph," the cyborg said seriously. "Do you think you have it in you to create one more portal?"

"No!" Switchback interjected angrily.

"Yes," Joseph said weakly.

"I think I might have a plan."

Elsewhere

Sam Guthrie ran. He had run into Forge after the man had turned the defenses on, Sam had heard the gunfire.

"Sam! It's time to step up and be an X-Man now, the mansion is under attack. I need you and your team to get all of the other kids and refugees to safety. Take them down to the Danger Room and hide them in there."

"Ah don't have access to the Danger Room," Sam had replied, still too stunned at the sudden attack to think clearly.

"I'll give it to you," Forge stuck a cable he pulled from his cybernetic forearm and stuck it into a wall display.

"Samuel Zachary Guthrie, authorized," the computer announced in a clear female voice.

"Go!" Forge barked. Sam ran. If only Bobby were here, he would have been the first person he had gone to for help. Think, Sam, think! He thought frantically to himself. Who could help him fastest? Clarice! She was new and hadn't exactly grown close to anyone in her time at the mansion, but much like Joseph, she was also able to create portals for others to go through. She could get everyone down to the Danger Room faster than anyone else. Where was she?

"Sam?" Danielle Moonstar's voice was frightened, not something she showed very often. "What's going on? I thought I heard gunfire and I can feel death approaching."

"The mansion is under attack we've got to get everyone down to the Danger Room, Forge and some of the others are going to try and stop them."

"Who is it?"

"Humans," Sam told her. "Do you know where Clarice Ferguson is?"

"I can sense her fears, I can lead you to her," Danielle nodded solemnly.

"Let's go!"

It didn't take long to find Clarice alone in her room, frightened, by then the explosions had begun. They had run into Doug and Warlock on their way and sent them both down to the Danger Room and to tell everyone they met to do the same. Sam would open it when he got there. Hopefully, they had run into a bunch of the refugees, they hadn't seen a single one.

"Clarice," Sam said breathlessly when they came crashing into her room, startling her. "I need you to help teleport everyone down into the Danger Room."

"What's happening? I thought I was supposed to be safe here."

"You will be," Sam tried to calm his voice and slow his breathing. "Because we're all here and working together there isn't anything we can't do. Now please, help me keep everyone else safe."

"I can sense fear," Moonstar piped up. "Clarice, I can guide you to everybody. Sam, you should get down there and open up the Danger Room before too many people get there."

"Right," Sam agreed and bolted toward the elevator.

Highway 81, West Virginia

Between Spring Mills and Koontztown was a lonely little stretch of highway where few houses were built. This was where the X-Men had found the Guthrie family. This was where they had stepped into a war zone. The Guthries and another young mutant were crouched behind a few upturned vehicles on the highway, one of them had been their van. Just down the road was a large force of at least twenty men dressed all in black, firing on them, bullets whizzed past the large family's heads. Then men had been advancing confidently toward them, their guns blazing, that is until the X-Men had arrived.

A colorful portal had opened up not far from the Guthrie family and through it stepped seven feet and five inches of organic steel, the Colossus of the X-Men. Some of the black-clad attackers diverted their fire to the newcomer, though it did them no good as bullets bounced harmlessly off of his armored form.

"I will come over there and help you all get to the portal, while the rest of the X-Men keep these villains occupied," Colossus shouted out to Lucinda Guthrie, the matriarch of the family.

Without warning a great wind rose up and blew down on the attackers with near hurricane force. Many of them had to stop firing just to regain their footing. Several of them had their guns forcibly yanked from their hands by an invisible force, the assault rifles blew away in the wind. Lucinda saw Storm and Jean Grey had both passed through the portal now. Jean Grey threw up a large telekinetic shield in front of the portal as the rest of the X-Men began to file through the portal.

The gunfire quickly resumed as the last X-Man, Angel, finally came through the portal. He took to the skies immediately flying in an unpredictable pattern to avoid any bullets sent his way. Lightning began striking amidst the attackers, courtesy of Storm, mistress of the elements.

Iceman threw up a massive ice shield for everyone to take cover under, it led all the way to the Guthrie family.

"I guess they won't be needing you, after all, big guy," Iceman smirked as he teased his teammate.

"I guess we don't need you anymore either," Colossus reached menacingly toward Iceman. The youngest X-Man dashed backward on an ice slide. He laughed for a second then looked around, his laughter fading.

"Um, guys, where's the portal?" Iceman asked. Everyone looked around, the portal had disappeared.

"How are we supposed to get to the mansion now?" Melody, one of Lucinda's daughters, asked in despair.

"It's much worse than that, I am afraid," Xavier said, wheeling over to join Lucinda and her family as his X-Men kept the attackers busy. He signaled Scott over to join them. "These people are here as a diversion. They are here so that we would leave the mansion."

"Why?" Scott asked.

"He doesn't know but I think they are going to attack the mansion and there is nothing we can do about it."

"Can't you do something?" Lucinda asked Xavier. "Aren't you powerful enough to reach across the globe with your mind?"

"Not without killing whoever's mind I touched. That's why I need to use Cerebro, not to amplify my powers, but to hold them back, and to process what it is perceiving."

"Sounds like a reasonable trade for me. Kill them if you have to, I have three children there!" A huge explosion rocked the ice wall, chunks of ice rained down on those cowering behind it.

"I think we have enough to worry about right here in front of us," Xavier countered.

As these characters vary slightly from our normal 616 X-Men I am going to include a few short bios in each issue going forward.

Professor X: (real name: Dr. Charles Francis Xavier) This version Charles is very much like his 616 counterpart up until about the X-Cutioner's song. This is where he began to make different choices, instead of opening the Massachusetts Academy he merely modified the mansion to fit more young mutants, and allow for further education and greater technology. That was merely a few months ago in our universe. Xavier has now telepathically called out and invited all mutants living in the USA to come to the mansion as a place of sanctuary due to the violent reactions people were having against mutants ever since the President of the USA was assassinated by a mutant. Meanwhile, he can tell there is growing unease against mutants in the government as well. In trying to protect his students and the growing number of refugees on the grounds he is beginning to stretch himself too thin and is showing the signs of fatigue.

Wolverine: (real name: Logan/Unknown) This version of Logan has just begun to have a few adventures with Jubilee as she has only fairly recently joined the Institute. He has never lost his adamantium and has never gone into his massive feral state. His past is largely still a mystery to him and he still believes Silver Fox to be dead at the hands of Sabretooth. He hasn't become a Horseman either though he has developed a closer friendship with Angel due to Warren's new rage and memory trouble after becoming Death. He is nowhere near ready to be a leader as Marvel has had him doing for the past decade-plus. This Wolverine is still more a skeptic of Charles' dream and in fact, has recently created an X-Force team with Archangel and newcomer Switchback with Cannonball in the know but not on the team. He is unaware of the existence of Daken and has only just learned that X-23 exists and Weapon X is still functioning.

Karma: (real name: Xi'an Coy Manh) A member of the New Mutants she has only just recently returned from Asgard with her team. Magneto was their leader for a short time while Xavier was being healed in space but she never was happy with the situation and is happy to be back at the mansion. She has her twin siblings whom she helps pay for their education via her job at the mansion thanks to Professor X. She has grown very close to her young brother and sister and has just learned that they have disappeared without a trace, much like her teammate Sunspot. She was initially the leader of the New Mutants but thanks to her job and wanting to spend more time with the twins she has slowly backed out of any sort of leadership position.

I have thrown a ton of characters and info dumps into this X-Men series as I want to build something special for all mutants in my story but I imagine for my readers it must be confusing who is where in this universe so I compiled a few lists for you to help clarify things.

X-Men: Professor Xavier, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Colossus, Angel, Beast, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Storm, Wolverine,

Students: Cannonball, Legion, Blink, Empath, Sunspot, Karma, Firestar, Firefist, Warlock, M, Catseye, Cypher, Magma, Wolfsbane, Roulette, Wiz Kid, Copycat, Moonstar, Beef, Shadowcat, Sunpyre, Siryn, Warpath, Hollow, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Chamber, Rictor, Magik, Marvel Girl, Synch, Jubilee, Ernst, Skin, Husk, Prodigy, Icarus, Spyke,

Refugees: Switchback, Portal, Connie, Wing, Papillon, Polaris, Multiple Man, Forge, Dazzler, Forgetmenot, Mimic, Wraith, Madame Drache, Evangeline Whedon, the Arm, Dr. Nemesis, Cecilia Reyes, Tek, Iceheart, Wildfire, X, Rush, Leech, Healer,

Mystique's New Brotherhood: Mystique, Vanisher, Destiny, Sabretooth,

X-Force: Archangel, Wolverine, Switchback, Cannonball

Missing: Sunspot, Leong & Nga Coy Manh, Wolfsbane,