Time Is On Your Side (Part Two)

Within thirty minutes, Hisako had been taken down to the medical bay, and Eddie and I were sat outside of the school's administrative office. The moment we'd spotted anyone to hand Hisako off to, we'd been ordered to head over and wait.

...You know... like heroes.

I was completely chill about the whole thing. I'd been there enough times in the last few months to be familiar with the atmosphere, but Eddie was beside himself.

"Hey-hey-hey! That was some heroic stuff! We're heroes! Why are we basically waiting outside the principal's office?" He asked, fidgeting about in his seat. He stopped and turned to me, "...Does this always happen?"

I let out a sigh, resigning myself to my fate of seemingly being the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time, "Every. Single. Time," I said, giving Eddie a sardonic smile, "Welcome to the club."

Eddie clearly expected more fanfare from doing the right thing, "I still don't get why we're in trouble."

"No? You don't?" A strong, Russian accent got both of our backs to straighten up, "How about, because you left the school during lockdown procedures. Or because you battled a dangerous enemy that even the X-Men know nothing about?"

We turned to face the towering Colossus. From the look on his face and the cross of his arms, it was clear he wasn't pleased, "Hey, Mister Rasputin. What's up?" I said, trying to play things cool. I failed.

"Nothing good," He said as he walked over and placed a hand on each of our shoulders, "Bellamy, Eddie, I respect your desire to protect your teammate, but there were better ways to handle this. Safer ways. You put yourselves in great danger."

I knew that. But the alternative was leaving Hisako in a bad guy's hands. I let him know as much, "Skip said he would kill her if any X-Men showed up."

Mister Rasputin seemed as confused by the name as he should have been, "Skip?" I almost laughed.

"That was what the guy called himself," Eddie clarified for our advisor's sake, "He's totally full of crap. There's no way anyone ever called him that before he showed up in front of us. God, I hope not, at least."

"Why did this man contact you?" Mister Rasputin asked. Funnily enough, it was suspect as to why someone would bother trying to interact with a student when full-fledged superheroes lived on the grounds, "What did he want you to do for him?"

"He wanted me to die," I said before I got somewhat hesitant to elaborate further, "He said... some things."

I didn't want to talk about it anymore, and he could see as much, but it was his job to know what problems and threats we had against us out there, "Bellamy... I know that you do not know me as well as you got to know Katya before she disappeared... but I am here to help you. I want to help you."

I had to give him a chance. He was our advisor, and the X-Men were experts at dealing with this kind of thing, "He said I destroy the world. A long time from now, but he said it happens," I revealed.

Mister Rasputin was stunned before trying to take things logically, "I do not understand. How? Why?"

Eddie stepped in at that point, having been there for the entire thing as well, "We didn't really get a lot of details from him before he started in on Bel. You don't think he's telling the truth, do you?"

That was a loaded question. If he said 'no', he was a fool for disregarding something that potentially dangerous, and if I went off we would all pay the price. If he said 'yes', he acknowledged that I was a ticking time bomb that would eventually take all of existence on Earth and beyond with him.

Mister Rasputin stood me up and looked me in the eye, "Remember, there was a prophecy that I was the one who would destroy an entire world," I remembered, of course. Breakworld, "It was nothing more than the manipulations of one desperate individual. Important things were lost because of it."

Yes, but in the end, he didn't destroy anything. He didn't doom a planet. He helped save it, and ours.

"The Paladins are my responsibility now," The gigantic Russian man assured me, "I will do everything in my power to help. I will not let anything bad happen to you."

I tried to smile. I don't think it ended up being much more than a well-meaning grimace. I wanted to believe him. I really did.