This Mortal Coil

The city lights were beautiful.

He
stood on the edge of the building, not feeling the cold...only
feeling the wind that whipped through his hair and fluttered his silk
shirt flat against his lean frame.

New York City sparkled
beneath him, twinkling like Christmas lights in colors he hadn't seen
since he was fifteen. In a few hours, his kind would scurry off to
their dark corners like roaches, but he'd stay and watch the
sunrise.

There was a certain irony in this.

It took
Changing for him to appreciate the colors and beauty of a
sunrise.

He ran the tip of his tongue over the sharp points of
his receded fangs, savoring the shiver of it.

How long had it
been?

Five years?

Not long enough to remember what it
felt like to be trapped in dying flesh. Not long enough to forget
her.

He'd come for her, but she'd fled with the others.
What was left of them. Most had been brought over, or killed
outright, it was better that way. A kindness. He disliked the term
"pets" but it was a pampered, elite existence for those
born superior.

And this was just the next step in that
evolution.

He'd find her.

She was above all of them,
even the other mutants, and not just because he remembered her taste,
the feel of her silken skin sweat beneath him, and the shadow of that
hormonal imbalance that the cattle call 'love'.

No, she was
important to all of them.

And one other, but he'd let
Bobby deal with him.

Fucking teleporters.

Telekinetics
were not exactly a walk in the park to deal with, as Drake so
helpfully pointed out.

But Eric was working on something,
something that would tame that little inconvenience. Jean and Kurt
had proved immune to all the usual 'gentling' of powers until they
could be brought over, or introduced into Society as
Companions.

Sometimes even the genetically superior had
problems with their own evolution and had to be trained.

They
were calling themselves something different these days, having
abandoned the perfectly adorable "Marvel Girl" and rather
unfortunate "Nightcrawler" in their misguided quest to be
mankind's saviors.

But they'd come around.

The two of
them, princes among new nobility -- after they did some cleaning
house of the dreck that was fouling up the race after Deacon Frost's
fortunate misunderstanding of an old prophecy had released the magic
that destroyed both Deacon and Blade.

Deacon was a
prick, but his sacrifice was much appreciated.

Who'd have
thought that The Blood God was a retro-virus?

And was
waterborne.

It had spread over the earth, raining blood. Some
were changed by the Blood Rain, some by the frenzy that swept through
the vampire race.

Bobby was the first to change...to
evolve, as the plague raged across the globe.

And then it was
over.

But it had just begun.

They had a
Revolution.

And now the homo-inferior race was the one that
lived in fear. But the Kindred were kind shepherds to their flocks,
and the world knew an order and peace it hadn't ever experienced. It
was Utopia.

Look, the city thrived. The cattle were content.
No one suffered. Crime was practically unheard of among the humans.
And disease and pain was brought to a merciful end...no lingering on
machines waiting for release into the arms of a god that very few
thought of anymore.

There were new Gods now.

Well, two,
at least. He didn't know why the old writings implied that it was
Jean and Kurt, but Ramsey had insisted that his translations were the
correct ones. For reasons still unknown, Jean Grey and Kurt Wagner
were to join himself and Bobby as leaders among this new race.

It
was an incomplete pantheon.

But once the missing two were
brought over, the world would know true Peace and Order.

He
worried that his hard won gift for Eric would delay the man's work,
but he'd never been good at waiting on giving presents. And Rogue's
condition would prove an interesting puzzle to Magneto, how to Bring
Over someone with her particular powers.

And the man had shown more than an
academic interest in their little Mississippi mud-rat.

Too bad
that the Cajun had slipped away, though his infamous nonchalance had
been broken when they'd taken Rogue, reports said that he'd screamed
her name before killing several good soldiers. But Scott wasn't angry
at Remy. Gambit just didn't understand yet, but he would.

Very soon.

Ororo had set out
herself to claim her Arcadian prize...hopefully before the thief
could make it back to wherever their little band of Merry Mutants had
holed up...last he heard it was under the protection of the Were.
Shame that. He almost missed Hank, but his bitch girlfriend's
invoking of old tribal magicks had caused a sudden population
explosion among the Were. Dani Moonstar needed to be put down like a
feral dog. What a brilliant man like Hank saw in her, he'd never
know. And he'd never forgive her for what her magic fumblings did to
someone who was once one of his closest friends.

"Scott!"


Raising an eyebrow, Scott Summers turned around.

"Kitty."
He said warmly, stepping down from the ledge and laying a cool hand
to her bruised cheek. She struggled -- crying with anger and perhaps
a little fear -- held between two vampire soldiers, the nanites
already working their little miracle on her powers. He frowned at her
bruises. "Who did this?"

"Sir, we had to use
reasonable force to subdue her, even after Mr. Drake forced her
solid, she was armed." The soldier who gripped Kitty left arm
gestured toward his healing wound that look like a sword thrust.


Bobby. He probably wandered by, waggled his fingers to
unphase Shadowcat, and then went on his merry way without so much as
a backward glance.

"So you beat her up, marked her face?
A noble Companion?" Scott leveled his blue eyes at the soldier.
"That's completely outside protocol."

Moving faster
than Kitty's eyes could track, Scott was behind the soldier, fangs
extended and buried in the lesser vampire's throat.

"Oh,
god..." Kitty recoiled in horror as the former leader of the
X-Men dropped the man, who crumbled into ash before his body could
hit the tar of the roof.

"Shh, don't worry." Scott
patted her shoulder, licking the single droplet of stray blood from
his lip, "We're family. Welcome home, Kitty."