Warren Worthington III

There was a thick fog roiling over Alcatraz by the time Warren managed to make it back to the island. A thick fog, broken only by the occasional burst of fire, like something large and heavy was being thrown and then hit, over and over again with gouts of flame.

Fog. Not exactly Warren's best friend, when he needed to come in and land. Karla was still here somewhere. His dad was safe, sure, but it wouldn't be worth it if he lost her to a bunch of insane mutants.

The fireballs stopped. A moment later, steam, fire clashing against ice.

"Karla!"

He couldn't see anything through this fog, damn it. He could hear yelling, footsteps as more troops armed with cure weapons honed in on one central location.

To hell with them. They weren't who he'd come back for.

"Karla!"

( Karla was still hobbling... )

[NFI, NFB, preplayed with and coded by glacial_witch, and pretty roughly based on the events of the last big battle in that really stupid movie that this kid comes from. Post contains Violent Themes and NPC death up the wazzoo. Dusty, dusty NPC death. There'll be just one more post after this, sometime later today. Almost done, I swear!]

The flight to San Francisco had gone more or less smoothly, really. Hell, it had been downright quiet, except for the phone call that Karla had made back while they were still somewhere over Nebraska. Warren had gone pretty quiet from there. The amount of yelling that he could hear from the other end of the phone had been almost as unsettling as the vague knowledge of what they were heading into in the first place.

( One did not simply walk into Alcatraz. )

[NFB, NFI, and once again written with the lovely glacial_witch! We're almost done with this canon catchup mess, promise!]

It turns out Warren and Karla didn't need to ask around for information. By the time they got to one of the common rooms in the mansion, people were already buzzing about a cure station in New York that had gotten destroyed in some kind of attack. Some people said it was a bomb, others said that it was a terrorist attack. It wasn't until Bobby (That was Bobby? Really?!) got back that they learned that it was a little bit of both. An old student named Pyro had blown up the building with his flames.

Worse was still yet to come. A little while later, Magneto himself came on the air on Fox News 5 to take credit for the devastation and deliver a message.

"Today's attack was only our first salvo. So long as the cure exists, our war will rage. Your cities will not be safe. Your streets will not be safe. You will not be safe. And to my fellow mutants, I make this offer: join us our stay out of our way. Enough mutant blood has been spilled already."

The video cut from Magneto's face to images of the attack: the protesters holding up signs saying 'No mutant cure.' The line of huddled figures, behind a ring of police protection, turning their faces away in fear or shame. Then the blast of flame through the windows of the building, clearly blasting inwards from across the street. Scenes of people, panicking, feeling, sobbing, dying. Dying from burns, from shrapnel, from falling and being trampled. A little mutant girl alone and sobbing. Police brutality against an unarmed mutant man.

And through it all, Magneto's voice continuing, repeating his message over and over and over again.

( Several hours later, more news arrived in the form of a much taller and less-smelly version of a person Karla and Warren had met once in a different universe. )

[NFI, NFB, written entirely by glacial_witch, who continues to be made of pure awesome. Ganked from that really bad movie, and we'll be continuing in the comments, because we're crazies like that.]

The trip to Xavier's had been... actually mind-numbingly uneventful. Warren had been quiet, staring out the window of the train and losing himself in his own thoughts, and while the bus had been crowded, it hadn't been so bad that anyone had noticed his claws or jostled his wings. He was going to consider that a win, thank you.

Once he and Karla stepped onto the grounds, he couldn't help but bite back a frown. The place was full of flowers. Which was... not necessarily a bad thing. Except that the flowers were mostly set up around a memorial. A memorial, recently erected, dedicated to the memory of one Charles Xavier.

"That is not good."

He didn't even wait for a reply before he was rushing up to the front steps, inviting himself into the building and making his way down hallways that he'd only walked one before, in a reality that wasn't even his own, looking for somebody who could tell him what in the world was going on. ( Karla was running after him... )

[NFI and NFB for distance, preplayed with and coded by the wonderful glacial_witch, follows this, and ganked loosely from that five-minute bits-and-pieces feature about Warren because there IS NO THIRD MOVIE DAMMIT.]