Enter the infamous legal disclaimer NOW:
I do not own any of the following. I wish I did. OH how I wish I did. Do you know how much money some of these bring in? But alas, I am but a meager college student working towards a teaching degree. That's right; I am in college, and going to be a teacher. Going from no money at all (college student) to no money at all (teacher). Please don't sue. You'll get a crappy pen set that I got from my brother many moons ago. Now, onto everything I do not own. Repeat. Don't own. I don't know sexual orientations or personalities either. DON'T OWN, DON'T KNOW!
Nsync, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Pink, Christina Aguilera, The Wallflowers, and any other celebrities. I also know nothing of their sexual orientations.
Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and all related characters.
The Anita Blake Vampire Hunter book series by Laurell K. Hamilton.
The Vampire Chronicles, Tales Of The New Vampires, The Mayfair Witches, all series and characters written by Anne Rice.
Buffy & Angel television series.
Birds Of Prey television series.
Star Wars
Star Trek, Star Trek TNG, Star Trek DS9, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek The New Frontier, Enterprise television series, movies, and novels.
Ok, now that that is taken care of, a little publicity for my co-authors. Go read these four stories in the Boy Bands, and Celebrity sections:
Tales Of A Real Dark Night (The series that started it all.) celebrity/boy-bands/tales-of-a-real-dark-knight/
Marvel Knights celebrity/marvel-knights/
Tales Of A Super Hero Band celebrity/boy-bands/tales-of-a-superhero-band/
Tales Of A Young Mutant celebrity/tales-of-a-young-mutant/
There may also be a new writer up and coming. Good luck! I love the storyline I've seen so far dude! Keep writing!
Finally, this is it I promise, we are entering into a section of the story where 4 stories converge. I am hoping that this is not confusing, but exciting for you all. So, enjoy!
The Story of the Birds Of Prey Chapter 4: Onward into the star filled night.
It was a while later that Eric and everyone else emerged into the dining hall. Lance had been standing next to a window and Eric went straight there. Jessica spotted me, Josh, and Andrea and came over.
"Hey, I'm glad you two made it ok. You should have seen him," Jessica said focusing on Josh, "He was a mess without you."
Josh turned towards me smiling. "So was I." He said taking my hand. I couldn't help but smile.
"How did the translating go?" I asked.
"We forged ahead valiantly, getting quite a bit knocked away, but are still left with more questions about what's going on than answers." She looked worried, but fought to find a smile.
"That's to be expected when dealing with sketchy descriptions being written hundreds of years ago by people hardly able to understand what they are seeing." I turned to see Andrea sitting there with a small smile. "Then you also need to take into account the writing style of the time. Whether it is poetic or more realistic."
"Do you know anything about interpreting prophecies?" Jessica asked Andy.
"No. I just know my literature. Writing styles are very different now compared to even just a hundred years ago. Language changes, grammar. That can really affect any piece of writing."
Eric spotted us talking and walked over from where he was.
"Hey." He said in greeting.
"Hi." I said, he then really noticed Josh and Andrea.
"What are you two doing here?" He asked.
"Well, I'm here because Devin and Blake think that the extra help is needed," Andrea offered. "Josh is here because he can't stand to be away from Blake for more than 30 seconds. I think it's like a fish without water. I was waiting for him to start flopping around the condo at any moment." Josh started giggling, I soon joined in.
"So, Blake, how are you holding up after what happened?" I knew he was referring to today with the child.
"Better. It's just... I don't think they heard it," I motioned to everyone in the room. "The minds of all those people. Those children..." I got lost in thought, grabbing Joshes hand for support. "Their minds screaming in terror for the very last moments of their lives. After I found that child, broken and... I can't help wonder what scream was hers." He looked me straight in the eyes; unshed tears welled around the edges. "I don't understand, I heard it so clearly so far away, and they didn't."
"God Blake, I'm so sorry." Josh pulled me into an awkward hug still sitting in our seats. "I should have been here with you."
"It's ok, you're here now." I let a few tears fall down my face. "You're here now."
Eric looked at Jessica, then the rest of us. "Lance and I have invited his friends to come to our room and talk. Would you like to join us?"
"Yeah." I said sniffling.
"I'm pretty tired Blake, I'm going to head for bed. I think you should go talk though. Eric can help." I looked at Josh, sensing his lack of sleep.
"Me too." Andy said, rising. "We are all in the same room, right? When you come in, if you wake me, I'll kill you slowly." She smiled to let me know she was kidding.
"I'll see you in a bit." I said pulling Josh into a hug, then a kiss.
I had gotten to bed late that night, and woken up early. Josh and Andrea were still asleep when I woke, so I left as quietly as I could, writing a note before leaving. I wandered the halls of the school when I heard a voice.
"It's a bit early to be up and about, isn't it Blake?" the voice said.
"Couldn't sleep." I said, searching for the voice. I looked down and realized I was wearing nothing but my pajama bottoms. I hadn't been sleeping well for a while, and was never a morning person. I chocked it up to being tired.
"Which is exactly why you should be sleeping."
"Who are you?" I asked the empty hall.
"Professor Charles Xavier."
"Well, Professor, how can I help you?" I said, while shifting the matter around me to create some clothes.
"Since you are awake, and don't seem to want to sleep, I was hoping we could talk."
"Shouldn't you also be asleep sir?" I asked, heading forward without much direction.
"Quite correct Blake. Like you, I can't sleep. I am about to send people I care about into battle, something I've done too many times. That task always steals my sleep."
"Understandable. Where should I go to meet you face to face?" I asked rounding another corner.
"There is an elevator down the next corridor to your right. Ask it to go to sublevel 4. In front of you will be a metal door marked Danger Room. Turn right at that door and you will see a staircase. Go up those stairs and you will find me."
I followed his directions, and was soon climbing the stairs. I was met with a control room over looking an immense empty space. The professor sat, in his floating gold colored metallic chair, at the control panel in front of the large window.
"I do apologize for using my telepathy on you Blake, but given the situation I have been more active when it comes to my powers. I do not want anyone from Apocalypse or the Brotherhood of Mutants to infiltrate my school and put the students at risk." He turned to me, a serious expression on his face. "It's also why I wanted to see you."
"Sorry Professor?" I asked confused as to why he would want to see me about that.
"I can reach everyone's minds but yours. You, with the enhancement of The Phoenix, are out of my powers reach. I would have to attack your mind to gain access, and don't want to resort to that. I am about to assign men and women I care about to fight along side you, and I hope you can understand that I do not want to place them in jeopardy. I am asking that you allow me to scan your mind."
I was a bit taken aback by his words. He was able to hear my thoughts, but not get into my mind? I then realized what he meant. A persons mind truly is like an onion, very layered. After the bombings I locked my mind away. All he could sense were my most surface thoughts.
"Quite right Blake." The Professor said. "You are not shielding those thoughts, but your inner most thoughts. The core of your mind that holds who you are, that is locked behind the most powerful shielding I have seen in quite a long time. The last time I sensed anything like your shield is when the last Phoenix was on Earth, inhabiting Jean Grey."
"Basically, you want to see who I am as a person. To make sure I'm not going to stab your people in the backs." I nodded, understanding his point. "I fully understand."
When I put up a psychic shield, I imagine a steel ball encasing the energy of my mind. The shield is perfectly round, the core of my being inside. I closed my eyes and pictured my shield. I then made it open, exposing my mind as if it were a star within an opaque bubble. I then felt the Professor searching my mind, probing as quietly as he could. When I felt him leave, I closed my shield back up.
"Thank you Blake, I feel much better now."
"So, what is this space? A cargo hold?" I asked, looking into the empty space bellow us.
"Actually, it's a training space. The Danger Room can recreate any environment, and provide the user a chance to train his or her battle skills. Would you like to give it a try?" I smiled at his offer.
"Sounds like fun. Can this thing create an outer space training field?"
"Yes, I believe it can, though it has never been done." The Professor began searching the computer files, and then accessed the appropriate file. The room bellow us began to shimmer, then was replaced with a view of the Earth from a distant orbit, the Moon slightly eclipsed by the Earth.
"Perfect. So, what sort of training does this offer? Can it create a fleet of Alien ships?" The Professor grinned at my eagerness and the room suddenly spun away from the view of Earth, and showed hundreds of small ships flying towards the planet.
"How do I get in there?" I asked, smiling.
"The door down the stairs. Be careful when entering. The antigravity generators are active." I turned and rushed downstairs. I stood before the door, and then shifted into my Phoenix costume. I pressed what I assumed was the door command button to the side, and it slid open. The moment I entered I felt the lack of gravity. I let loose the Phoenix and steadied myself. "Phoenix," I heard the Professor say over a com system. "Do not hold back. This room can contain a small nuclear explosion. Attack those ships as if they were real." He said. I nodded and started for the ships, amazed at the technology this room must contain. It was just like Holodecks on Star Trek.
"Ok aliens, let's dance." A small group of ships veered of towards me. Most people might veer towards them and take them on before going back for the larger fleet. I decided to kick into a higher speed, head straight for the large fleet and allow the strays to follow me. As I flew over the fleet I let loose a volley of Plasma Blasts. The blasts set fuel supplies aflame in giant explosions where they hit. I turned and headed straight for what I assumed was the command ship by its sheer size compared to the rest of the fleet. As I neared the ships following me began firing. The blasts started getting close as they zeroed in on me so I started to play with my course.
I was spinning and dipping, curving and pulling up. I had also erected a force shield around me. One lucky blast hit me and sent me flying off course. I turned and saw the ships that had followed me, along with a number of new ones. I held my hands up and fired an unending stream of plasma energy straight at the ships. Acting as if it were a fire hose blast of water, I began sweeping the ships. Once they were all dispatched I turned back to the Mother Ship.
I let the Phoenix grow to its full size, feeling its power and eagerness to stretch its wings. When I had fully unleashed it, it measured roughly the size of a Boeing, 727. I turned back towards the Mother Ship and pulled together as much speed as I could. A trail of blazing energy trailing me, I slammed my left wing right into the main body of the ship. The ship was much larger than I, but my attack left a gouge that went into its very heart. All the other ships started veering away from the mother ship, which had small explosions blasting through the surface of its hull. I decided to follow the smaller ships leads and flew away from the ship.
With a gigantic explosion the Mother ship was gone. I turned to the smaller ships and saw them flying away at their best speeds. I laughed and pulled the Phoenix back inside. Then the room simmered, and I felt gravity being restored.
"Amazing Phoenix, just amazing." The Professor said over the comm. System, "You may be new to the Phoenix powers, buy you are handling them well."
"I'm more running on instinct then anything else." I said looking up at the window.
"Instinct can be your best friend in battle Phoenix, but always remember to think. I sense the others are beginning to wake. You may want to go retrieve your friends from your room. I will be calling a meeting very soon." I nodded, and headed back for my room.
Josh, Andrea, and I all headed to the meeting the Professor had set up for the morning. There were a lot of people at the meeting. There was the group I had come to know as the Marvel Knights, Eric, Lance, and Jessica, and also the group I had met last night, The Kindred. I ended up sitting between Jean and Scott, with Josh next to Jean and Andrea next to him. I turned to him giving a smile then projected `Love you babe.' to him.
What surprised me was his `Love you back.' That I heard loud and clear. I began to wonder if there was some sort of psychic connection developing between him and I. With a couple minutes before the start of the meeting I asked Jean about it.
"Well," she began, "psychic mutants can sometimes develop a link to people they have strong feelings for. Scott, who has very little in the way of psychic talent, and I have a strong link. I think it's perfectly normal for a mutant and a regular human to have that connection. It is probably only strengthened by your Phoenix powers." Josh smiled at me after she said this.
"Told you it would be ok." He said.
"Blake, why don't you and I trade seats?" Jean said laughing.
"Sounds like a plan." We stood, and traded spots as Professor Xavier called the meeting to order.
"I appreciate everyone's patience; it took us a week to get all the information we needed. I am confident that we have everything we need to continue investigating. I will reveal to you all that we know of Apocalypse. When Blade arrived here over the weekend, I admit we didn't have much about the mutant. But now, we've contacted just about everyone, including the group known as the Talamasca, in order to get the information we needed.
"Apocalypse was born nearly five thousand years ago in Egypt as a member of the Akkaba clan. Even as an infant, he inspired fear. Ugly and malformed, he was abandoned by the tribe to die in the harsh desert sun. The baby was found by a roving band of feared desert raiders known as the Sandstormers. Most of them, too, thought the infant should die. However, their ruthless leader, Baal, somehow recognized the potential power in the child. He named him En Sabah Nur, which means "The First One", and raised him as his own son.
"As En Sabah Nur grew, he surpassed the other tribesmen in intelligence and strength. Everyone in the tribe except for Baal hated and feared him for his inhuman looks and great abilities. Nur did not understand their fear, but hardened his heart against it. Moreover, he believed in the principle that Baal and the tribe lived by, that only the fittest, tested by hardship, would, and should, survive. On the day of his tribal rite of passage into manhood, the seventeen-year-old En Sabah Nur killed three armed warriors of the tribe using only his bare hands.
"At this time Egypt was ruled by Pharaoh Rama-Tut. On the day of En Sabah Nur's rite of passage, Baal explained to him that Rama-Tut was no god, as most believed, but a man, who had arrived in a strange vessel. Years ago the tribe had stumbled upon the time-traveler's crashed ship, taken the injured man back to their camp, and nursed the injured and temporarily blinded man back to health. One night he wandered away, taking with him objects the tribesmen had brought from his vessel. Weeks later, his sight restored, Rama-Tut returned, wielding weapons of devastating power and leading the Egyptian army. He massacred the tribe and enslaved the survivors. Although he tortured them, no one revealed the time ship's location.
"In actuality, Rama-Tut was a time traveler from the far future who would later become known as Kang the Conqueror. Kang knew that Apocalypse, one of the most powerful mutants who ever lived, and the one who was destined to rule the world, had been born in ancient Egypt. Hence, Rama-Tut had gone back in time to find Apocalypse as a child, raise him, and thereby become the master of the most powerful being on the planet.
"On the day of his rite of passage, Baal brought the young Nur to a sacred cave whose entrance became blocked by a cave-in, trapping them underground. After a week of wandering without food or water, they found the remnants of Rama-Tut's time ship within an underground Egyptian tomb. Baal told Nur that he believed him to be a conqueror whose coming was foretold in ancient prophecies, and that Nur was destined to overthrow Rama-Tut. Then Baal died from lack of nourishment, and Nur, whose mutant physiology kept him alive, vowed to take vengeance on Rama-Tut and claim his destiny. Four weeks later he finally made his way back to the surface.
"Nur became a slave, but eventually he had a vision of the Egyptian death god Seth, who urged him to become a conqueror. It was at this moment that Nur first manifested his superhuman powers. Eventually, the Pharaoh finally came face to face with En Sabah Nur. Rama-Tut offered to make him his heir if he would swear his loyalty, and then tried to kill him when Nur refused. Nur defeated Rama-Tut's warlord Ozymandias and Rama-Tut, who finally escaped back into the future, eventually to take on the identity of Kang.
"From then on Apocalypse plotted the conquest of the planet through bringing about wars and conflict, in which the strong would defeat and destroy the weak. Over the centuries he was worshipped by many civilizations under a variety of names. Mutants, he was certain, would one day rule the world, with him as their leader, and so he waited. Most of what Apocalypse did during these centuries is as yet unknown.
"At the time of the Crusades, Apocalypse arranged for the warrior Bennet du Paris to activate his latent mutant powers for the first time. Renaming him Exodus, Apocalypse made him his servant but later cast him into a deathlike trance when Exodus rebelled against him.
"According to information I gleaned from Magneto, an old friend may be working with him. He may very well be the man Cloak saw in Columbus with Apocalypse. That is an angle that I have a team set up to investigate.
"Dylan, I appreciate how you and your team have offered to help. I would like for you to go with Kitty to England and work alongside the team Excalibur. Working together you may be able to uncover more information as to why Juffrey is involved with Apocalypse.
"Ororo, Jean, and Rogue, I would like you to investigate Egypt along side Blake and Andrea. The rumors from the Watchers are that rumors are flying around of your vampire Dasro working with Apocalypse. You may uncover some information about Apocalypse and how he met up with Dasro. After all, the legends of the beginning of Dasro's species of vampire began with a king and queen of Egypt, Enkil and Akasha. Since Apocalypse came from Egypt as well, you may be able to uncover how the two met and why they would work together now.
"Scott, Jessica, Blade, Weatherby, and Eric, I would like for you to go to Orlando, Florida."
"You're sending us home?" Eric asked.
"No. There is a mutant by the name of Northstar that I want to join your group." The Professor explained. "He has some information about a mutual mutant that might link her with Apocalypse. She may help lead you to Ghost Rider. From there, you will go wherever the leads take you."
"Lance is coming with us," Eric said.
"Are you sure that it is safe enough for him? You don't want him getting hurt, do you?"
"I won't put him through what he went through when I went to England. Where I go, he goes."
"The same goes for me." Josh said. "I saw what happened to Lance, I refuse to go through that my self." Josh took my hand and looked at me. "I'm not strong enough."
"Very well," Professor X said. "Any questions?"
The room remained silent. You didn't need psychic powers to feel the tension radiating from the men and women present; everyone was scared about going into battle. Everyone looked to Eric when he raised his hand.
"Eric?" The Professor asked.
Eric looked at each of us in turn. As if he were memorizing our looks, reading our fears.
"The world hates us because we are different. Some of us are different in more than one way. We are going out from here to face that which goes bump in the night, to face that which the world doesn't want to accept. Vampires, mutants who want to take over the world, and other forces that not all of us could begin to imagine. It is going to be rough. This will be hard for all of us. We will probably be pushed beyond our limits. And for what? To protect the world, to protect people who could care less about whether we have the same rights as them? To defend a population who would rather we all died because of our differences so they could have everyone in the norm? It seems unfair. That's because it is unfair. The world is full of ignorant, selfish people. But I believe that this world will, one day, be better than what it is. They've come so far in a short amount of time. That is evidenced by how ethnic minorities and women are treated. They are being treated more and more equal. That is evidence the world can become better than what they are.
"Looking at each of you, looking through the window to your souls, I can see beautiful people, beautiful on the inside. You are a group I'm an honored to say I've known and worked with. You are a people who can accomplish. You are what heroes are made of. And I want to say thank you for knowing you and having the opportunity to work side-by-side with each of you."
Eric sat and I smiled at his words. It was a very stereotypical rev up speech, but it did strike all of the right cords for those present, describing feelings quite well.
"Thank you, Eric," Professor X said. "Are there any more comments or questions?" There was no response. "Very well. Let's get ready. The X-Jet will be leaving in few hours to take Kitty, Dylan and the rest of the Kindred to England. I suggest everyone else get packed and ready for their return."
Everyone stood and Ororo looked at Jean, Andrea, Josh, and I. "We should locate Rogue and plan our trip to Egypt."
We were about to leave when the Professor stopped us. "She is currently fueling two of the Mini-Jets. I contacted an old friend in Cairo and arranged a landing place in the desert. Rogue has already been given the appropriate information, com frequencies and such, and will be able to make contact once there." We all nodded and headed out. Jean and Scott headed for their room, holding each other tight.
"I can't imagine that. Being separated at a time like this." I said, pulling Josh close to my side.
"Me neither. You know, I've always wanted to go to Egypt." We laughed as Ororo turned to us.
"We leave in a half hour; you should gather your belongings." We nodded and headed for our room.