The Enemy From Tomorrow, Today (Part Five)

The last few days ran out before date night, and the motley crew of myself, Megan, and Eddie hopped off the shuttle to Salem Center to meet up with the others. From there, things had been surprisingly controlled, through no small effort of mine. Although taking everyone to a big arcade first where everyone could get lost helped out a lot.

"I'm so excited for this!" Megan said from her position sitting in my lap. She'd been playing with my hair while I'd been playing a racing game, "Oh, Bel! I still can't believe you agreed to this!" She showed her affection for my thoughtfulness by pulling my head against her chest. Yes, please. It really wasn't that big of a deal from my end.

"It's not like I hate other people, or going out and doing things, Pix," I simply wasn't a people person. That didn't mean I was antisocial, it just meant I was bad at it, "Besides, I owe you an actual date. I'm just sorry that I didn't set up one for the two of us."

We'd actually been able to spend more time together than I thought we would. But it wasn't quite that quality time that I would have preferred.

Good-natured as she was, Megan didn't bother sweating those kinds of details, "Don't worry about that. The more the merrier, after all!" She exclaimed before whispering very close to my ear, "And I'm sure we can find some time for ourselves if we really want to later."

I felt goosebumps rise on my neck. Goddamn girl knew just what to say to get to me, "My God, I am a terrible influence," I said in fake disbelief, "I would have never figured you'd say something like that to me six months ago."

Megan bit my ear, grinning the entire way as I carried her, "Yep. It's all your fault. Not hormones or anything like that. Just you. How dare you? What would my grandparents say?" She said in false outrage.

I tried my hand at coming up with something exorbitant for her sake, "Something-something-Welsh terminology, something-something-we sent you away to learn, something-something-American boy. Or something about me being black. I don't know. I'm not sure how racist things get over there in Wales."

"Bel!"

"I'm kidding! Kind of."

We had met up with the New Mutants, sans Jay Guthrie, in the park close to Salem Center's plaza. I recalled it better as the place my first actual date with Megan was ruined by Ord cutting me open, so I quickly guided us all elsewhere to the big arcade nearby. As anticipated by Julian, Josh was there with Laurie, David was there with Noriko, and Sofia was there waiting on him.

Keeping things civil had not been an easy task with this extravaganza involving members of four different training squads. We greeted the others and it took all of ten seconds for Josh to start in on what would be a long night, and he had never really stopped.

Josh walked over with Laurie from where he'd been buying her a prize beforehand, "Bel, I can't believe you're actually helping Keller with this," The gold-skinned kid said, shaking his head, "It's like helping the bad guy from those 80s ski movies."

He could keep that rivalry crap to himself. I was here to keep the peace, "I'm not helping anybody with anything. I'm Switzerland, holmes. If Julian can win Sofia over on his own, good for him. If he crashes and burns without backup, too bad," I pointed my thumb over at Eddie, "I'm only responsible for that chump."

Eddie was with his date for the evening, Cessily, showing his complete lack of aptitude at a shooting game. Much to his credit, he'd done a great job entertaining her. Lots of smiles, lots of laughs. He'd been nervous as hell before we'd gotten there, but once we were in the moment, he'd loosened up and risen to the occasion. Good for him.

I smiled at the sight. It did my heart well to see my boy doing his thing. Megan gave my hand a supportive squeeze. I was glad to try and do right by my buddy, "Yep. A peaceful night is the best thing I could ask for here," I said.

Noriko came over with David by that point and gave me a swat on the arm with metal gauntlets, "I don't believe you. You love pissing people off. I'd have thought you'd be all in on making Keller miserable."

Miserable jerk that I was, I didn't think I was quite that bad, "Nope. As the only person here with no dog in this fight, I am the goddamn chair umpire here," I informed her, "Impartiality will reign supreme. If anyone starts a fight with anyone else, I'll shoot you in the face. Cool?"

On second thought, maybe I was that bad?

Noriko knocked at my cast with the hardware on her hands, "You're going to fight with a cast on?"

I looked her way and shrugged, "I still have one free hand to blast people with," I wiggled the fingers of my good hand at her. To the untrained eye, or someone who wasn't in the know, I looked injured. Not so much in reality, "Besides, have you ever been clubbed in the head with a hard cast? I guarantee you it'll hurt you more than it'll hurt me."

Again, why did I not find a more diplomatic way to say that?

Megan looked up at me with a disappointed expression, "Bellamy!" She said in an attempt to rein me in.

Okay, I could see how that could be construed as a threat, "What? I'm just trying to make sure peace is upheld, for all of our sakes," I said, trying to run damage control, "The stuff in Salem Center sucks, but unless I want to drive for more than an hour to get to New York City, it's the best I've got. I'd rather not get banned."

Level-headed David tried to put my fears to rest, "None of us are going to start any trouble, right?" He finished with pointed looks at Josh and even his date for the evening, Noriko.

"Speak for yourself," Nori replied testily. David didn't relent, and eventually she backed down, "Fine. I'll be good as long as Keller doesn't start with his shit."

Josh was more contentious, "I'll try, but no promises."

Bringing us all together and then quickly taking us somewhere we could all break off for a bit had been a master stroke for the moment, but all I'd really done was buy time. Once everyone got back into closer quarters, this was going to be miserable. What they were missing was that this wasn't about any of them. Their friend was the one going on this date. The only reason the rest of them were going was because they didn't like the guy she was going out with, which by itself was fine. However, that didn't mean they had the right to torpedo the whole thing.

Sofia, who had clearly overheard due to her power to pick up particular sounds on the wind, seemed very unsettled about all of this. A stark contrast from the confident Wind Dancer I was accustomed to. Megan and I got up and headed her way where I spared her a few words.

"Hey, don't let them control any part of this. It's your date. They're just tagging along. If they're bugging you, let me know," I offered as a method of easing her mind, "Consider me and Pix their babysitters."

Megan seemed very excited at being included in my warden duties, "Ooh, yeah! I'm the nice one they all like playing games with, and Bel's the one they all hate who puts them in time-out."

I could admit, that was a semi-effective analogy for the most part, "Uh... if by 'puts them in time-out' you mean 'gives them frickin' laser beams', then yes."

Sofia gave me a small smile, but her posture was much more relaxed. She actually believed me when I said that if something came up, I'd handle it. "Do you remember before when I told you that you are a good friend?"

I grouchily snapped my jaws at her in response to her sappy sentiment, only for Megan to grab my cheeks and neuter any intimidation factor I might have had going for me, "Don't listen to him. He's just being difficult," She said, with a sly look on her face, "Bel's really a big, grumpy teddy bear that glows in the dark sometimes."

Sofia got a few chuckles from Megan's description of me. Even I had to grin a bit, "Yep. I'll accept that, Pix. I do have the emotional depth of a stuffed animal," I said, putting my hands over hers.

Our time at the arcade passed with little to no actual flare-ups between the New Mutants and Julian. But things couldn't last forever. As we filtered into the movies, our next destination, Julian leaned over my way, "I thought you were on my side on this? What happened to that?" He hissed under his breath, trying to keep anyone else from hearing.

I wasn't nearly as subtle, "You asked me to go, dude," I said plainly. Whatever he wanted from me, I didn't care. I had my own agenda to attend to, "I'm doing what I'm supposed to do."

Julian gave me a few elbows to the side, "You're supposed to be making me look good."

I laughed. Was that what he thought? It seemed I had to smarten him up, "No, I'm here to make sure you get a fair chance, and that nothing stupid happens."

It was better than nothing, and if he had assumed that I would be running any more kind of interference for him, he was mistaken. If things weren't going smoothly, that was on him, and I told him as much.

I gave him a shove and threw an arm around him, getting him to look over at where Sofia was checking out movie times with everyone else, "Stop focusing on them and focus on her," I more or less demanded, "You see that?" He nodded dumbly, "This is what you're here for. Focus. Keep your eye on the ball, jabroni!"

"...Jabroni?"

That was what he was focusing on? My terminology? "Not important! Movie. Girl. Seat yourself strategically," I advised.

"How?"

I wanted to punch something, preferably him, and not for being a dick this time. No, it was for being dumb. For someone so cocky, I assumed he'd be more conniving about this sort of thing. Clearly not.

I moved my hand from left to right to illustrate, "You, Sof, Cessily, Eddie, me, Pix, and jam the rest of the New Mutants down after that," He opened his mouth to ask how, and I didn't have the patience to humor him, "Take an aisle seat. Sofia will sit beside you. Cess will sit next to her if you smarten her up, Eddie with Cess, and so on."

Why did I have to be the one to spell this out for him? I had a woman of my own to spend the goddamn evening with. And here I was thinking Eddie would be the hopeless one. Not so much. Cessily had actually taken his arm when he'd offered it for the walk from the arcade and hadn't let go yet.

A look of understanding dawned over Julian's face, one that slowly morphed into a goofy grin, "Marcher, you're an evil mastermind."

It was a show of thanks, but it hit home in the corner of my heart. He didn't know that I was having problems over this very thing. And this time, I couldn't pretend that it was anything other than a method of manipulation – a way to give yourself a leg up unbeknownst to everyone else. Even if I did it for someone else, even if there was no malice behind it, it was what it was.

We all bought our tickets and headed inside for the next showing. The choice of the evening was going to be some suck-ass generic rom-com where dates could focus on each other more than the movie itself. That was why those kinds of films existed, just so you know.

Eddie made sure to hold the door open for Cessily. Gentlemanly of him. Also, it was an opportunity to shoot me a giant, corny thumbs up before he went inside as well.

Megan giggled as we moved past the concession stand while the others waited to get snacks. Julian had beat it to the front of the line so he could take the initiative and put my scheme into action, "Eddie seems to be doing well. Did you give him some tips on how to get girls?"

"That would only work if I had the faintest idea as to how I pulled you," I joked as Megan moved in front of me. She pressed her back against my chest, throwing my arms around her neck as we stood and waited, "Seriously though, I'm so proud of him. He's actually not screwing this up," I imagined that Hisako drilled into his head what not to do, but still, good on him for taking advice and actually stepping up to the plate, "...That's one less thing to worry about tonight."

"Something on your mind, big fella?" Megan asked, rocking herself side-to-side in my grasp as we people-watched.

I looked down and gave her a kiss on top of the head, "Just you, Pix," I said that. But my attention was on every person that walked into the lobby. Every person in line. Anyone that may have wandered past the doors and windows.

Megan wasn't dumb. Energetic didn't mean idiotic. She noticed things, especially about me, "You're tense. You've been tense all night. What are you thinking?"

I let out a sigh and decided to let her in on the current goings-on, "About my bad track record with outings, plus a new guy trying to kill me. And I do mean 'me' specifically."

"But there's so many people around. Not, like, civilians, but other mutants," Megan said, "If someone attacked you, we wouldn't just let it happen. It would be ten-on-one. That's crazy."

Perhaps I was just being paranoid, "We'll see," I said. It wouldn't hurt to stay vigilant regardless, "Maybe it'll be nothing... or maybe you're just bad luck for me?"

"Oh no," Megan replied, digging the point of her finger into the underside of my ribs, "You don't get to blame any of your misfortunes when you go out on me. This stuff happens even when I'm not around."

I ignored her and kept trudging forward with my hypothesis, "No, I think it's you. You've got some kind of black magic on you that's rubbed off on me."

Any further attempts at flirting were cut off by Julian who walked by with Sofia, then followed by Cessily and Eddie, the latter of whom tried to beckon us to follow, "Hey, come on. Seats. Let's roll, Sol," He said with a 'chop-chop' clap.

Megan puffed out her cheeks in annoyance at a moment being ruined, and I couldn't blame her. I felt the same, "Motherfucker, this was my idea," I muttered as we filed inside.

"Can I dust him?" Megan asked with a flap of her wings, "Please?

"No, baby," I said automatically before taking a moment to reconsider, "...Actually, I don't know. Ask me later," Maybe after the date was over, depending on if he blew it or not, he would deserve the hallucination.

As it turned out, my evil plan worked like a charm. Sofia wanted a chance to get some solo Julian time, and the movie was the perfect chance for Julian to cozy up to a willing Sofia. With the New Mutants being all the way down at the other end of the row, there was no interference.

I felt like tapping my fingers together like Mr. Burns, 'Excellent,' Now I could pay more attention to my Pixie. Very little watching of the movie was done on my part. The armrest went up, she and I cuddled, and my hands roamed. My thoughts were otherwise occupied with idle thought, because the movie was awful, as anticipated.

Eventually, Megan gave my arm a tug and whispered up into my ear, "Hey, Bel-Bel, I'm thirsty."

Fuck. We had skipped the concession stand, so I could stand off and be paranoid, hadn't we? And there were still sixty minutes left in the movie. That would be at least seventy more minutes before we got to the restaurant for dinner. Poor thing.

Well, any excuse I could use to not watch this movie was welcome, "I'll make a run. What do you want?"

Her eyes lit up in the low light of the theater when I agreed to go, "Cherry slushie!" She requested.

I nodded and went to stand up, "Great. If you ordered a $4 bottle of water, I'd be upset," I said in parting as I started to move toward the aisle, "Be right back."

I made it down the stairs, but never got out to the lobby. I took a step to round the bend to the door and dropped off the face of the Earth, and back, but in a completely different location.

I hit the ground on my face and picked myself back up before anything else could happen. A matter of seconds later, a portal opened out and Skip stepped out.

Looking around, it seemed like we were at some kind of private airstrip. His footsteps sounded out poignantly on the tarmac, while I stood there seething, "Are you kidding me?" I asked rhetorically, "Are you kidding me!? You couldn't even let me get outside before you did something?"

Whatever I expected, it wasn't to pluck me straight away from where I was in one piece. Let me finish the movie, or even get a last meal to boot, you son of a bitch.

Skip looked at me as if I were stupid, "So you could coordinate your little crew to try and protect you again? Not a chance," He gestured between the two of us, "No one needs to be involved but you and me. No friends. No X-Men. You don't have anyone else to hide behind this time."

"I was never hiding from you, you pink eye," I shot back. I had literally gone out for a night on the town with the threat of him killing me looming over my head, "If you ever thought I was sweating you that much, you're dumber than I thought."

Skip shook his head, not rising to the insult, "It doesn't matter what you say now. I finally got you all to myself."

I let out a sigh and tried to look around for any landmarks. I didn't see any that I knew of. It was anyone's guess as to where I was, "You know, there's a girl I'd rather hear that from than you. And you pulled me away from her," Rolling my shoulders, I took my open button-up shirt off and wrapped it around my waist, "Alright. Alright. Alright. You want me to whoop your ass head-to-head? Come on then. Let's get this over with."

He laughed, as if I amused him, "No running, no hiding, no reasoning, and no begging. You're finally showing the balls all of the older versions of you seemed to have."

Older versions of me? What, did Skip know the future me that destroyed the world? Is that why he held a grudge? Goddamn future people. Whatever. None of that mattered. The guy trying to kill me was right in front of me. No kidnapping and extortion. No attempts to kill me from afar. It was just he and I, as basic as things could get. All I had to think about was winning the fight. Despite everything, I smiled as the two of us squared off and circled each other.

I'd already seen Skip's little redirection trick, and he'd seen how accurate I could be. Neither of us had picked up any new tricks since the first time we'd met earlier in the week, but true to what he'd said, I had no backup if I screwed up and things went south.

Skip made the first move. He waved to make a portal and punched through it. I just dove in a direction, not knowing where his attack was going to come from, and fired a shot at him. Skip stepped through the rest of the portal and charged me down, trying to give me a kick while I was down. I blocked, but he kicked me hard enough to move me across the pavement, pushing my body into a portal that dropped me from fifteen feet in the air.

I righted myself in midair and landed on my feet, only for Skip to appear in front of me through another portal. He battered me with punches before retreating through another portal before I could counterattack.

Quick bastard. I was going to have a long night if that was how he planned to operate. With no Eddie to split his attention, all he had to do was keep himself out of my 45 degree range of sight.

I believe I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Fighting people when they can teleport is a bitch and a half. Skip beat the piss out of me. Taking him on in open space was suicide. All I could do was try and defend myself and cover up while I stumbled over to a hangar., just for something to put my back against. I lost count of how many blows I wound up taking, and was at least grateful that he hadn't replaced the gun I'd taken from him the last time.

As I slumped against a portal with my hands up, Skip walked through a portal, not to attack me, but to assess me, "You know you have to do something, right? If I hurt you badly enough, your body will just force you to hibernate to heal itself. Then you're a dead man."

"Fuck you," I said through a mouthful of blood. Inside, I panicked. Why did he know that? No one knew that. Even my own team didn't know how exactly my speedy healing worked. It was something I never talked about.

We made eye contact. It was only for a split-second, but it was all I needed to laser-pointer him right in the eyes, "Arrgh!" He covered his eyes with one hand and flinched away, making a portal to stumble back blindly through. I grit my teeth and blasted him dead in the chest. He flew back through the portal and fell out of the other end nearby behind me.

I took my opportunity and pounced, literally. He was so close, I jumped up and planned on making like a little kid in rainboots – stomping the mudhole that would be his ass with both feet.

He made a desperation portal between myself and him, and I landed right in it. Going through one of those portals felt like walking through cobwebs. He hadn't had time to contemplate where he wanted to send me, so the other side, wasn't far away, and wasn't far off of the ground. I landed and stumbled a bit, almost into another portal on the ground. I stopped myself short of stumbling in, but it was a good distraction. I didn't identify it for what it was until it closed with nothing happening.

Skip teleported to my side and hit me with a large wrench he had picked up inside of the hangar. I got my arms up, but he leveled me. I avoided what I could, but he still clipped me in the head hard enough to knock me down.

I could feel the flesh torn at the side of my head, and the immediate headache that came with it. This needed to end, now. But thinking was a major problem with the onset of a goddamn concussion.

I got a moment of reprieve when Skip took the time to tend to his vision while I was down, "Can't believe I fell for that baby's trick," He complained as he rubbed at his eyes, "This you isn't nearly as scary as any of the yous are in the future, but this you is way more annoying."

The only plan that my trauma-addled brain could think of was to shoot him. It didn't help. He redirected it through a portal and I wound up shooting myself in the back.

"See? Annoying?"

I hated his voice so much. He let me stand back up, "I'm not gonna destroy the world!" I yelled.

Skip shook his head, "It wasn't your choice. You didn't do it on purpose. You still did it though," He explained, "You didn't ever know just how much power you had. It was always something you were able to keep under control. You never destroyed anything you didn't mean to. But in the end, you just-," He stopped talking and made a popping sound with his mouth.

For a moment, I stopped and thought back. It had been months ago, but Ruth had told me as much.

"Bellamy works hard and does his best, but it will not be enough. No, it won't. He will try, but it will be more than he can handle."

I'd let it go after a while.

Skip seemed lost in his own thoughts as he spoke to me again, "...Do you know what a black hole looks like up close?"

"No?"

Clearly a rhetorical question, meant to make a point, "Neither do I. But 99% of the Earth's population did... or they would have if they had survived it," He said gravely serious, "One million souls stuck looking for some place, any place to exist. That's all that's left. Black, white, human, mutant... it doesn't matter out there. Funny, how it took the end of the world to bring about any real sense of equality."

More sad, actually. Sad and terrifying. But just because his future was shit didn't mean mine was going to be, "You realize that killing me probably won't change anything, right? Killing me in this time won't fix yours. All you can do is prevent that outcome in this timeline."

I should have known better. I wasn't a genius coming up with that line of thought. Skip had likely thought this through ten times over, "Right. There's nothing that can be done about my time, so I plan on living in a different time. I'd rather it didn't go up in smoke while I'm in it, so you've got to go."

Right. Because I'm the only thing out there capable of destroying the world as we know it – not.

I'd had enough time to get my thoughts in order, and I had a plan. Skip was cocky... and to be fair, he had a good reason. From what he'd said, he'd fought bigger, better, badder versions of me. So dealing with current me was like a warm-up with consequences to him.

I wasn't just going to roll over and die, so I pushed myself up to my feet with blasts and fired shots at him. They missed and nearly hit me when he redirected them, but it was just to take better note of how he reacted.

Ol' Skip was too confident. With powers like his, it was best to hide how they worked, because he controlled his portals with his arms. The right arm formed the. entrance, and the left formed the exit. I saw this because he would wave his right hand in front of wherever he saw mw fire, and the left where he wanted the other end of his wormhole to form. I could work with that.

When I made my move, I knew I had to make it count. I would only have one try, and if I failed it wouldn't come close to working again. I raised my hand, fully intent on firing a shot – hand glowing and everything. When he moved to male his counter portals, I only watched the direction his left moved in. When I followed it, I found a ripple in the air and threw a light blade through it.

He was never in any danger. It was more dangerous for me, because my own attack was still coming at me. But seeing an attack come through the wrong end of the portal closest to him spooked him enough to want to reset the chess board.

He went to retreat through a portal behind him and my heart leapt. I had a split second between the time he went through it to the time it would close. When I saw him start to vanish, I fired a finger beam to follow him through.

"GAAAGH!"

I cringed and turned around to where Skip had teleported behind me. He clutched at a hole the size of my fingertip through the right side of his chest. There was pain and panic in his eyes, but I had no mercy. He'd tried to kill me three times now. His time was up.

I shot him dead center, again, much like how I had in our first encounter, only this time it was with an explosive blast. Nothing was left to chance. Three of those, charging him down the whole way. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to break his goddamn teeth. My punch landed dead in his face, and on contact he ate a concussive blast. He flopped like a ragdoll down the runway and didn't get back up, not that this mattered to me. I was in a borderline blood rage.

I take no pride in what happened next… but I broke his arms. Luckily for him, he wasn't conscious to feel it, but it was entirely calculated on my part. I needed some answers, and that portal shit had to stop. Again… it fed more into the whole possible sociopath theory, because I didn't care about how bad I hurt him. I just knew what I needed done, and that hurting him was the quickest way to do it. It wasn't like I had rope around or anything.

I sat and waited, ready to shoot Skip again if he so much as stirred. After a few minutes, the Blackbird landed a few yards away right in front of me, with Saberwolf leading the way with Mister Rasputin following closely, suited up and ready to fight. They were a few minutes too late for any action.

Mister Rasputin tried to ask me questions and check my wounds. So did Mister Summers and Miss Frost. I just brushed them off and went to sit on the plane.

The only questions I had any interest in were the ones I had for Skip. Whenever he woke up, I had to make sure the X-Men got them, even if I had to do it myself.