CHAPTER 431 FUTURE DAYS PAST

CHAPTER 431 FUTURE DAYS PAST

The silence dragged on as I flew over the Atlantic Ocean. The joy in Kitty was too much for me to want to break by talking. I could feel that she had spent a long time trying to get to this point. As the reality that she succeeded set in, she began to cry.

I didn’t make any jokes as I normally would have. Stopping in the air I wrapped my arms around her. Though a future version of the Kitty I knew, she was still skin and bones. Her small body was racked with sobs as she held onto me tighter.

It took time but when she finished she pulled back up to look at me. “You know, I hated you,” she said.

“I’m pretty easy to hate,” I said. I lifted her up and moved her to my back. She latched on in a piggyback ride. “Why did you hate me?”

“You left us,” she said. “Even with all the crap with Anne. And Delilah freaking out daily. You left. And you never came back like you promised.”

I remembered both girls fondly. Anne was my once girlfriend in the world, and the future Rogue. I had just seen a glimpse of her before Kitty zapped me to the future. Delilah was the young clone of Jean Grey. A funny girl that played up her amnesia. I was falling hard for her in the present. Unsure what to do I was hoping for some hints about what would and wouldn’t work in this future.

“I don’t remember that, so it hasn’t happened yet,” I said. “Mind filling me in?”

She let out a sigh, continuing to hold onto my back as she spoke. “Head to Queens and I’ll tell you all about it.”

I went horizontal and began flying slowly towards Queens, New York. It took her time but she spoke. Much more coherently than before.

“I can’t remember how long after I pulled you from. But most of the strong mutants get abducted by aliens,” she said.

“What kind of aliens? Probe kind or murdery kind?”

“Both?” She asked. “I don’t know. You were all pissed because they didn’t take you.” I stopped her there.



“The aliens didn’t take me?” I asked, genuinely upset. “I’m one of the strongest. Do they only take mutants?”



“No, a lot of strong normal people were taken too. Off to fight in some trial. Anyway, you threw a hissy fit and flew off. Saying you were going to bring them back. Well, they came back, and you didn’t. Anne said you never made it there. The aliens were called the Shitters or something?” I frowned, not recognizing the name. Still rather annoyed I wasn’t taken, I needed to be sure I was abducted if I got back to the past. Anal probe or not, I wanted everyone to know I was one of the strongest human...or was it because I wasn’t human? But a Viltrumite too? I decided to think on that later.

“Either way, a bunch of drama happened since then. But Anne and Delilah got over it. Then about three years ago the government unveiled their new mutant fighting tech. The Sentinels.” She scoffed. “It happened after Magneto caused some shit of course. Said they were starting up the Sentinel program just in case. Since Genosha kept recruiting from America they wanted to learn all the potential powers he could have under him. So the Sentinels scanned people. Able to sense the X gene even if you didn’t know it, they would make a record of you. Then some time after that they began announcing who the mutants were. Every day people with a stupid minor mutation got kicked out of groups and families, driving more people to Magneto. The government didn’t like that so they blocked some visas. More drama, Magneto made threats. Then it was revealed the Sentinels could fight now. Some fancy new patch. They shipped out bigger ones and started killing mutants that stepped out of line. Magneto and X didn’t like that at all, so they joined forces. There was this big old war. Everyone choosing sides. And well mutants lost. Magneto left the planet with the survivors that fought with him. The rest of us were left to rot.”

“Who died?” I asked.

She laughed. “It’s a shorter list to tell you who lived,” she said. “Some disappeared like Delilah and Jean. Wolverine too, he was saying this was all karma and just went off into the woods. Rogue made it. Forge. He’s got this plan for a new machine but we needed a part from Cerebro since he didn’t have the material to make what we needed.”

“What are you making?” I asked.

“Our own world wide mutant finder,” she said. “We are hoping to gather those few that escaped. Maybe disappear like Wolverine did. There are plenty of countries that don’t care if you’re mutant or not. But we don’t want to pull a Magneto and leave people behind.”

“So they killed everyone?” I asked, a lump in my throat.

“No, but they might as well be dead,” she said. “They enslaved most of us. Attached these mind control collars on them. If they try to do anything they’ll make it explode and kill you. It’s pretty gruesome. We put those we can out of their misery.”

“Fuck me,” I said. “This is dark, Kitty.”

“You’re telling me. I have to wake up here everyday,” she said.

“What about me? I assume if I die here, I die for real?”

“Probably,” she said. “Maybe not? Before now I simply sent my consciousness back. But somehow I pulled your whole body. So you might want to watch it before you’re sent back.”

“How long is that?” I asked.

“A day or two. No more...a week tops,” she said.

“Great,” I said, actually meaning it. I was strong. I could help these people. I didn’t know why past me didn’t come back but I was sure it was related to my challenges. At least I hoped it was.

“What’s plan number one?” I asked.

“First, get this crap to Forge,” she said. “Emma can use her powers to find who we need.”

“Emma Frost?” I asked.

“Yeah, you know-“ she said then stopped. “Oh shit. I forgot there were rumors about you banging her too.”

“There were rumors of me sleeping with Frost?” I asked, very annoyed.

“Oh yeah. Hisako, she talked about how you had this whole thing going with her and this blind chick.” She laughed loudly then stopped. “Jeez, can’t remember the last time I laughed.”

“Well I’m glad my drama can bring you joy,” I said. Annoyed by this. I hoped when I got back that Anne hadn’t heard these rumors, but knowing Hisako, I was sure she did. We continued flying, eventually Kitty had me land.

We walked through a checkpoint in the main part of the city. Kitty hiding inside of me expertly she passed through easily and we grabbed a cab. I doubted I would get away with flying around the city like before. With checkpoints, an increased military presence, and a lot of unknowns around me I wasn’t about to risk anything.

When we got closer to Queens she pulled her hand out of me and signaled to stop. I paid the cabby and we got out. Currently winter out, she wore a coat as I stood in my black hero costume. Snow beginning to fall overtop of us; everything felt eerie to me.



“How bad is it, Kitty?” I asked.



“I already said-” I stopped her by pointing at the insides of a home across the street. A family was sitting down, watching TV. Each laughing at some stupid slapstick comedy show I didn’t recognize. Before I had only felt Kitty who was depressed, scared, and bone tired. But around me were happy families, hidden away in their little worlds.

“It’s fucking bullshit,” she said, starting to cry again. “Just because they’re normal they get to be normal. No worrying about being raided, enslaved, raped. They all live in this little bubble. Uncaring what they do to us.” She wiped her eyes as she began to walk again. Her hands in her pockets

“How did they justify it?”



“Terrorism,” she scoffed. “Like we were some ticking time bomb. Some sort of error in the evolution of man that had to be purged. They say they’ve been working on a “cure” but it’s all bullshit. Normal people didn’t raise a stink so they just let it happen.”



“That is bullshit,” I agreed. Pulling her close to me she leaned her head into my shoulder. “Well, how can we fix it?”



“This isn’t getting fixed,” she scoffed. “I-I already tried. There was this government guy. Larry Trask, his brother was a mutant and killed his whole family accidentally. He made the Sentinels. Said he needed to purge us. I went back, and may have tried to you know, kill him.”



“And you failed?”



“So bad,” she said. “I ended up saving the guy from another killer, and he was all like how did you get here, then my power swooped me back and when I got back there were more of my friends taken.”



Other



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Happy with my gains I considered using the Bonus Upgrade on the Inverse resistance, but since I wasn’t sure if I would have to fight the Sentinels, I decided against it.

“We are here,” Kitty whispered, pointing at the large building next to us.



I looked over, noticing that I knew the place. It was the warehouse that I had fought Lizard at, where he experimented on all those mutants. Also where Gwen and Peter had been experimenting with their web shooters.



“It always comes back to here,” I mused, amazed at the coincidence. Then again, how many underground laboratories could you find in the city?