Ororo was at work when she received the call from her son’s school, the voice was unfamiliar and the caller only offered that her immediate presence was necessary. By the time the elevator door opened she had resolved not to panic, despite her shaking hands and rabid pulse. This was not the first time that the school had requested a conference but there was an eeriness in the caller’s voice and the unsettling rush of adrenalin felt warranted.
She drives sensibly, wishing that she could break from the constrains of her vehicle, tap into the jet stream, level it’s wind pattern and arrive at the school in ninety seconds. However, if she is wrong and the situation calls for an approach less spectacular then all of the time that they have spent to appear average will have been wasted.
They have not seen or heard from their extended family since the wedding, twelve years ago. Sometimes it is difficult to believe that she has been able to go for so long without their counsel or even that in all of the time that has passed that she was not able to support them through their own tribulations. Ororo adores Logan and their sons and she wouldn’t trade them for the smallest fragment of her previous life but she has found that her husband and children are not fair substitutions for honest, intimate friendship.
For the past six months Ororo and Logan have gone back and forth with regards to the children: Torrance will be twelve in a few months with Elliot turning ten in six weeks and if the X-factor in their genomes proves to be active then they will have to decide on a course of action. The progress in mutant rights has come full stop and she credit’s the Xavier Institute as the safest place for their children. Logan disagrees, he feels that they are equipped to train their children in the ethical use of their power: Ororo argues that their powers could be in a vein that they are not prepared to cope with.
For all of these years they have been completely hidden, so much so that even their children do not know their identities. She fears that revealing this secret to them will make it impossible to teach them about power and responsibility; by keeping this secret for so long she worries that it may take some time to rebuild their trust. One of the consequences of that breach could be rebellion and with mutants of mean power rebellion is far more dangerous than the same instance with homo sapien-sapiens.
“I got the same call,” Logan says, holding his cellular phone with one hand and steering his vehicle with the other. “I’m on my way there.”
“Something is not right about this,” she says, silently, cursing the cautious drivers ahead of her.
“Yea, doesn’t click right with me either but it’s probably...”
“It isn’t that. It is not just another fight.”
Torrance was six when his parents realized that their children were not innately vested with their sense of tolerance. It was summertime, Ororo’s workload was light and Torrance had a friend sleep over. She was making breakfast when she heard two keywords in their conversation: Torrance had remarked, “mutie” in reference to another friend’s older sister and the other boy had replied, flatly, “freak.”
Later that afternoon she and Torrance dropped his friend at home. After a short, cordial exchange with his mother in regard to how “perfectly behaved” Frank was they were on the road and a few minutes into the drive she turned down the inane, juvenile anthem, “Bye Bye Bye” and started a discussion that she had been preparing for all morning.
“Do you remember,” Ororo asked as if she were reminiscing, “what happened when you started school?”
“No,” he said, devoting his attention to the GI Joe action figures in each hand, slamming them into one another, changing the tenor of his voice for each character.
“Some of the children did not want to play with you because your mommy is black and your daddy is white,” she said, shifting her attention from Torrance in the rearview mirror and the road ahead of her.
“Mom!” he replied, catching her eyes in the mirror, not wanting to relive his first months of kindergarten.
“I told you that sometimes people use hurtful words when they are unfamiliar with something; when someone is different. They are afraid of different people.” Ororo was thankful for the stoplight; she was able to watch her son’s reaction.
“Yea.”
“Well today I overheard you call Jacob’s sister a ‘mutie’ and I know that you know that those words can really hurt.”
“Sorry,” he said, his action figures dangled in his motionless hands.
“I do not want you to be sorry, Torrance. I just think that you should consider what you say and how words affect others.”
Logan is waiting in his car when she arrives and she can hear the horn honk, signaling the initiation of his alarm system, after climbing out of her own vehicle.
Even with children running and yelling on the playground, the school seems very still to them. Outwardly, their apprehension seems unwarranted and even though time has dulled their training James and Ororo Howlett have not lost their sixth sense. They can always tell when something is amiss.
Their biggest fear is what they have always feared; that the decision to protect and prepare their children would no longer be theirs.
“They are mutants, the husband has been scanned and his abilities are regenerative but we haven’t been able to scan the mother to pinpoint her power but the son is getting it from one of them and it isn’t the Beta.”
He is only a tech with minimal military training.
“Take him out,” The colonel orders. “No risks with the woman; we don’t want to kill them.”
Ororo hears a compacted zip of air pass her head and when she turns to her left; where her husband should be, he lays defeated, a motionless mass on the pavement.
There is a law, coined by physicists that even the most powerful Goddess is bound by; for every action there is an equal, opposing reaction. Ororo Howlett is familiar with the theorem; long before her formal education she knew that the more perverted her manipulation of the weather the greater the consequence.
Today, long term changes in climate are the least of her worries; even if a tsunami proves to be the result of her machinations she would have no regrets. In this moment and every moment that follows in her life the safety of her children is paramount.
All color fades from her eyes and the air around the couple becomes a thin, solid, fortified veneer.
In the under wire of her bra, Ororo Howlett carries a modest set of lock picks; retrieving them is an unattractive feat. She crouches to Logan’s side, hurriedly improvising; she makes a crude, superficial incision in his neck, retrieving the flattened shrapnel with her thumb and forefinger, dropping it beside him.
The bullet makes a subtle but heavy clink against the dark pavement.
She summons an impossibly thick, moist fog, consistent with tepid steam and she rolls her husband under the bed of a Chevy truck.
Her chest heaves.
I am grossly out of shape, Ororo considers.
The effort it takes to ride the winds is overwhelming after her earlier feats, her body rages. Ororo is in poor form and it nags her that the cavalry will not arrive and she does not know how long it will take for Logan’s mutation to compensate for the wound and blood loss.
The steady beat of her adversaries marching toward the courtyard pauses her; she is confused, instinct no longer guides her. When she left the X-men her reflexes would do the initial work but now it takes seconds before deciding on a course of action.
Her arms are outstretched, a gesture followed by boundless thunder and torrential rain. The wind tears through the courtyard, the rains are violent projectiles stinging and reddening the uncovered skin of her enemies and for them, her vicious maelstrom is the perfect apocalypse.
The commotion below is the only proof that Logan has recovered; his eyesight is incredible and isn’t bound by technological limitations. The static electricity blinds their sensor; its pitiable, highly trained mercenaries have become fodder.
Damn it, Ro! Logan curses his wife, rampaging through the soldiers; the rain has washed away the scent of his children. His frenzy is aided by his blind search for the boys.
Her acuity intensifies until she is able to visually separate the energy patterns of the storm with that of her enemies. Each being’s energy stamp is fundamentally different, much more complicated than DNA; she is attuned with her husbands ebb almost as intimately as that of the elements and while she cannot manipulate its threads she would recognize him anywhere.
“Neutralize her powers!” The colonel orders, facing the tech.
“I would have to know where to aim, Sir.”
“What about the blanket?”
“We don’t have a power source that could support blanketing the area.”
“Redirect the troops; have them focus on removing all children from the area and call in the sentinels!”
“Our soldiers can’t tell the difference between their allies and their enemies; it’s impossible to evacuate the children under these circumstances. I’m not even sure that they could retreat.”
“Give the order!”
The colonel considers his career and fears that today will be the day that writes his history. After thirty years of impeccable service James Roberts will be remembered for a single, catastrophic blight on his record.
He imagines the headline, Mercenaries Provoke Schoolyard Skirmish.
Physical wear prevents her from effecting any further change but she is able to manipulate the existing wind and lightning and with lethal force she smites the armored men below, renouncing vows to honor life.
She can feel the turbulence in the air in the same fashion that she can sense casual changes in weather patterns. The turbulence could only be a school of fighter jets or sentinels but experience guesses for her.
Ororo Howlett has never hated herself so much or been so ashamed.
Logan trusts his wife, immensely, but he is jarred and confused to find himself swept from the ground, propelled by her winds.
“What the hell …”
“Sentinels!”
“I don’t …”
“There are more than we can handle; if we stay then that’s it for us!”
He doesn’t respond. His demeanor illustrates his agreement and when she closes the space between them, fear arrests him.
They are gone before reinforcements arrive.
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