Back when we had the functional Danger Room at school, Miss Pryde would often run us through all kinds of simulations. They often ran the gauntlet from evacuating and protecting civilians to fighting all-powerful supervillains, and everything in between. There were also times, however, where we would be instructed to do weirder stuff, like defuse explosives, or infiltrate places. Most of the other teams were just taught how to fight, but Miss Pryde made sure we knew just how diverse the weird stuff we'd find ourselves involved in as X-Men could get.
Between that and the actual academics we received at Xavier's, there was no one who could say that our school didn't teach us important things.
It was why the smaller mission specifics of what Hisako and I had to do on Breakworld hadn't been that hard to wrap our heads around once we'd gotten over our initial shock and horror. We knew what we were supposed to do, it was just a matter of figuring out how to make it work for ourselves. The same thing went here.
Quire wanted to find Magneto, last seen on the island of Genosha. The same island of Genosha that had been genocided about a year and a half before. The same island of Genosha that was under quarantine by neighboring militaries. For just about any other set of teenagers, this would have been a bigger obstacle than it was. Granted, it was still a problem for us, but it was literally something we had drilled infiltrating in the past!
For all the shit I talked about Quire as a person, he was a powerful enough psychic to make it easier than it was with the Paladins training squad. I thought Ruth was good, but she was too volatile, too raw to juggle multiple tasks at once, especially at a high level. Quire didn't have nearly as much issue with that.
We used his telekinesis to fly slow and low to avoid showing up on sensors and radars, keeping out of sight of patrolling vessels. If we had to venture close, we had to make sure we got close enough that Quire could mindfuck people into thinking they didn't see anything. It was all a big war game, just with real consequences if we messed it up.
We didn't mess up. Quire was a cocky piece of work, but he had power in spades, and having had to deal with Julian for the last year, I'd learned how to manage working with people who had massive egos. Also, being someone with a massive ego, I knew how to keep him from needling Hisako into antagonizing each other.
Maybe I wasn't so bad at this whole leadership thing after all?
Or maybe it was because when Genosha finally came into view, none of us had it in us to go back and forth over petty things.
16 million people had once lived there, most in the areas surrounding the capital by the coast, Hammer Bay. Now it was a ruin. In hours, the entire population had been devastated, and the whole world just fucking watched – myself included.
It's weird; you hear 16 million, and you immediately understand you're talking about an extremely large place, but your brain doesn't - can't - process just how large it is. Not until you're standing in the ruins of a city that used to be home to that many people.
Even after a year-plus, it still looked like ground zero to the end of the world. The radiation was gone, but there wasn't a proper building standing. The tallest structure was a three-headed Wild Sentinel, one of the machines that had eradicated the country. How it hadn't been scrapped yet was beyond me. Perhaps they'd decided to leave it as a monument or a memorial. Regardless, the way it loomed over what used to be Hammer Bay was unnerving to look at.
"Jesus..." I couldn't help but mutter as we traversed the ruins.
Quentin was reserved for once, but still couldn't help but let some of his abrasiveness through as he spoke, "This is it. This is the crap they've been trying to keep you from seeing. Genosha was one of the most advanced, promising nations on Earth. A symbol of hope for mutants all over the world. And now look at it. And nobody cares."
Cut off from the rest of the world, significant help never came. For the handful of denizens left on the island, stuck there, unable to leave, it must have been a nightmare. The remaining numbers were so small, from millions to hundreds, any attempts to rebuild were paltry at best.
I couldn't help but start thinking. My mind raced. There had to be something we could do. I couldn't just leave and go home without making something - anything - better. We were supposed to be goddamn superheroes, weren't we?
We'd been walking through the city for hours, with me lost in my thoughts. A nudge from Hisako finally got my attention, a distraction I was thankful for, "Did we bring enough food and water for the three of us?" She asked.
It was mostly for the two of them. I didn't need food, and I could go a lot longer without water than either Hisako or Quire. Whether or not we had sufficient supplies was not my primary concern. My concern was with whatever the hell Quire was occupied with.
"The more I see, the more pissed I get," Quire said aloud to no one in particular, "Genosha was glorious! This place was the pinnacle of mutant culture! A look at the future! And what happened? They destroyed it all, because they were scared! Scared of progress that would leave them behind! Scared of a future where humanity didn't dictate the state of the world! Scared of us!"
"Humans didn't do this, Quentin," Hisako said, exasperated.
Quire had been doing that. Speaking, but not talking to us. He sounded like a politician practicing his speech in the mirror, only he didn't seem to be trying to elicit a response from Hisako or I.
"Who is he talking to?" I asked, keeping a close eye on Quire for any funny business.
Hisako grabbed my sleeve and gave it a shake, "Uh... Bel?" She pointed to our surroundings.
People. There were people. Not many, but more than I thought we would see. Dozens of them, in various disheveled states of dress and cleanliness. They had definitely been through the wringer, and they were all focused on Quire. When he'd been talking, he had also been projecting; reaching out to any mind he could touch as we traveled.
The boy in question smiled at his apparent audience, "Magneto was right," He declared.
"Yeah, I've seen the shirts," I snapped back, "Whatever."
Quire laughed, "No, you don't get it," He made a wide, sweeping gesture around himself, "He did it. He made a haven for mutants. A paradise. A place where we were supposed to be safe and prosperous. He got closer to taking care of mutants than Xavier ever did."
Through his means of trying to work with the powers that be to eke out a place for mutants, Xavier had created a school and several methods of outreach that directly helped thousands in the end. Magneto's more antagonistic means of attacking and threatening the world had resulted in the United Nations recognizing an entire country meant for mutant sanctuary. The ends had justified the means in that case, as far as Quire saw it.
To be honest, I was hard-pressed to disagree. To the people that had lived there and remembered all the good that had come with Genosha, it had to be an even more striking declaration.
"He was going to raise a home army," Quire continued, "An army to protect Genosha, to fight for this place. And the X-Men had to jump in to stop him! Why? What was so wrong with wanting an army for a sovereign country?" The more he spoke, the more fired up he grew, "They turned him into an invalid before this place needed him most! How useful would an army of powerful mutants have been when the mega-Sentinels showed up?"
True enough. Without a means to defend themselves, Genosha had been a sitting duck. That it had been attacked wasn't what had been surprising. It was the means and the effectiveness of the attack that had horrified the world, and that humanity hadn't even conspired to do it. But for all of the horror Genosha's eradication had caused, the world certainly wasn't doing anything about it now.
Quire shook his head and looked out at all of the people that had gathered to listen to him, "They won't leave us alone just because Genosha is this way now. They aren't helping to rebuild. They won't even let you all leave. It'd be better for humanity's world if you all just... disappeared from the face of the earth."
It was at that point, I wasn't about to let him continue his impromptu rally, "So this is all you wanted? You wanted us to take you here to live your Lord of the Flies fantasy? Or was it for a dry run of your campaign speech?"
Quire scoffed at me, "I'm a man of vision, Marcher. I go where I'm needed. All of you sheep at the school? You're fat, happy, and comfortable. Even after everything that's happened, you're still taking your medicine and buying into 'the dream'," He jerked his head in the direction of the Genoshans listening in, "Meanwhile, everyone here has been living in reality."
"And what do you plan to do about that reality, Quentin?" One man's voice rang out in our heads. A bald man in a wheelchair rolled to the front of the crowd, focusing specifically on Quire, "Still trying to find your purpose, I see."
At the sight of the man, Quire grew more irritated than he had ever seemed in my presence, "So, this is where you ran off to after Summers got tired of your bullshit. Figures."
While he was as antagonistic as he always was, instead of staying and being a nuisance, Quire shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to leave. Whoever this was, just being there, he managed to do something I hadn't been able to in months; he got Quire to shut the hell up. Just as I was wondering how to ask the guy his secret, he looked over at Hisako and I and smiled before rolling away.
It had only been a moment, but something about it felt like it was significant.
"Should we know who that guy is?" I asked Hisako as the crowd dispersed.
"Yeah," Hisako replied, "Considering you go to a school named after him."
I looked between Hisako and the departing man so many times, so quickly, I almost made myself dizzy, " That's Charles Xavier?" I asked, having put two-and-two together immediately.
I didn't know what I'd been expecting when I saw the man in person. I'd seen pictures and portraits around the school, but those held a kind of poise and stature that didn't translate over to seeing the genuine article. Even as a man confined to a wheelchair, he seemed smaller than I'd expected. Then again, if he had been in Genosha for any extended period of time, I didn't expect him to have a very robust, calorie-rich diet.
Come to think of it, what was he even doing there? In all my time at Xavier's, I had never actually seen Xavier. Anytime I'd asked where they guy was, I always received a non-answer. I'd eventually just chalked it up as other people's business that I had no place trying to pry into.
Now though? The guy in question was right there, wheeling away from me. I had a boner for knowledge and needed my curiosity satisfied.
As I walked off after Xavier, Hisako followed, though she glanced back in the direction that Quire had stormed off in, "What about Quentin?" She asked.
I couldn't be bothered to care, "What about him? We got him here. Far as I'm concerned, whatever he wants, we're done with him."
He would show up again before we made our arrangements to leave. And if he didn't? Well, that would certainly be a tragedy.