I don't own anything except any original character and/or any original plot.

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Chapter 6: Young and Old

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"We've got thirty seconds before the rest of the team gets back. No time for messing around," Tony ushered us onto the platform. With our past practice, we took mere moments to change into the Quantum Realm suits. It helped that we could put them over our suits, "We left Scott- Lang, I know we have two- in New York so he'll come back with them too."

"Are you sure you want to go out there? Tony and I can try to go back to New York again," Steve offered, not bothering to hide his anxiety, "It was our mistake for not being able to grab the Mind Stone in the first place."

"Thank you for your concern Captain, but this is our fight now," Xavier spoke up, chuckling, "Not all of us may look capable, but we'll be back with the others."

Without hesitation, Steve nodded. The Professor was good at convincing people like that. All of us activated our helmets, and Kurt counted down.

"Three, two, one."

Fwip.

We popped up earlier in the fight against Apocalypse than expected. Our estimated time was obviously off. Unlike the Battle of New York, no one was tracking when the X-Men arrived and dealt with Apocalypse. All we had was a date and approximate time-span.

All of that left us with Apocalypse, his former lackeys, and the professor. No X-Men yet. They were still at the facility after being captured by Ryker.

Hear me, inhabitants of this world, the X-Men simultaneously winced as the Professor's voice, young, rang through their heads, This is a message. A message to every man, woman, and mutant. You have lost your way. But I have returned. The day of reckoning, it is here. All your buildings... all your buildings and temples will fall. The dawn of a new era will emerge. For there is nothing you can do to stop what is coming. This message is for one reason alone... Those with the greatest power. Protect those without. That's my message to the world.

"That was badass Professor," I whispered excitedly to the man, eyes straining to see the group in the distance- Thanos' modifications coming in handy and clearing up the large distance. At the moment, they were just outside the city.

I had heard the story of Apocalypse many times. From the X-Men, the news, and my parents. But I wasn't alive to experience any of what happened. Physically being near the man, and seeing the past event was both terrifying and awe-inspiring.

"How long do we have to wait before the team arrives?" Ororo winced upon seeing her past, Apocalypse serving, self.

"An hour at most," Xavier offered unsurely.

"So we have an hour to deal with him?" Kurt questioned nervously, tail flicking, "That way we won't meet ourselves in the past and cause confusion."

"We barely beat him with a full team," Scott shook his head in disagreement, "We should wait until our past selves get here and distract his followers. After we rescue the professor, we tried to escape, and they went after us. That's our moment."

"Professor?"

Xavier nodded, "Scott is correct. The followers are not in their right mind, and we don't have the numbers to deal with them ourselves. All we can do now is wait."

~*~

After approximately an hour of consistently moving building to the building to avoid detection, and of anxious moments where the followers just barely missed seeing us, the X-Men landed at the sight. More than once we relied on Kurt to teleport us away.

"Alright, we need a plan. As soon as they take off we need to get in there and get the stone," Ororo looked to each of us, "Does anyone have a plan?" Silence. "We've been waiting for an hour and no one has anything?"

All of us jumped at the sound of fighting from outside. Based on the professor's calculations of how long he was on the table in the pyramid, we had around five minutes. Five minutes to make a plan. All of us regretted not taking the time to make one earlier. But in our defense, it was usually Jean or Logan giving the orders in the field.

"I'll assist myself in fighting Apocalypse mentally. Young me doesn't cut in until after the ship crashes, but that doesn't mean I can't begin as soon as the ship takes off," the professor offered, kickstarting our ideas.

"I got stuck under a building pretty soon after they left, but I switched sides after the crash, so I shouldn't be in the way of anything," Ororo stated, pointing out her young figure falling beneath a building.

"I can zoom in there as a distraction," Peter offered, "He might break my leg again, but I've figured out how to heal faster so we're good."

"I'll teleport around and distract him as well," Kurt nodded.

"We're forgetting the fact that it took the entire original team plus Magneto to defeat him," Scott hissed, "Even then it was very close."

Peeking out to see where we were at, I rebutted, "That was before we could control our mutations as well as we can now. You didn't even have me on the team back then. Everyone has matured. We can do this. And if we can't, fake it till you save the universe."

"What would we do without you? The baby of the group," Scott threw an arm around my shoulders, ruffling my hair as if we weren't in the middle of a battle for the universe.

"I'm twenty-one," I smacked his arm, tired of being the child when I could drink legally, "Now, focus. We have one shot at this. Peter and Kurt distract him with the professor, Ororo and I will face him head-on. Scott, you need to melt off his armor. Remember what Rocket said about the Power Stone? If it touched the ground, it would have killed everyone. This isn't the Power Stone, but we still have no idea what would happen if it hits the ground. So, don't let it drop, but don't touch the stone. It will kill you."

Whoom

The X-Men's stolen ship flew above our heads, ruffling our hair. Just after the ship was Angel and Psylocke. Storm was dealt with until the final battle when she switched sides. It was our chance to get in there without messing up the timeline.

"Alright everyone, you know what you have to do. Go do it!"

Taking a strange sense of pride as the team dispersed, I ran out from our cover with Ororo just behind me. Apocalypse was ready for us, sending half a building our way. Ororo jumped up, and I dove underneath to avoid it.

"Up and down!" I made a circle motion with my pointer finger.

Ororo flew up and sent down her largest lightning strike, not dissimilar to Thor. Rearing back, I iced my water and shot it towards him, aiming for the joints of his chest plate- in the center, the Mind Stone rested, glowing blue as his eyes did. Peter and Kurt zoomed and bamphed around him, dodging hits and dealing them out when the villain was distracted by us women.

Shhhhoooop! The ship was going down just as it had in the past. Everything was happening faster than I imagined, but battle did that to you. It wasn't supposed to be slow going. Momentarily diverting my attention to the ship, I caught Young Kurt's blue smoke poofing out from the inside. Angel's metal wings shone in the sun. Angel would die, and we would lose a potential ally. It wouldn't change our future, but rather open an alternate timeline. So if I could-

"Scott, go now!"

Scott leaped up, removing his glasses entirely. Relieved of my duty, I sprinted across the ruins. Just inside the looming crash zone of the ship. I threw my hands forward, sending water through the cockpit window. With a quick tug, Angel flew out and his body slammed into mine. Groaning as my back hit a rogue stone, I didn't have time to wallow in pain. Scrambling to my feet, I pulled on Angel's wrist until he followed my lead away from the ship.

"Who the hell are you?" He asked, jerking his hand away, "Are you with them?"

Glancing back at the X-Men fighting, I noted how close Scott was to getting that chest plate off. But something was wrong, the vibrations of all the other attacks had dented the metal. The stone was loose. We hadn't accounted for the armor strength as we should have.

"Why can nothing go right?" I hissed to myself, retrieving Angel's hand again, "I don't have a lot of time. But you have to believe me when I say that Apocalypse will only bring you pain. Humans suck, sure. But they will change. Hate will never leave entirely, but joining the X-Men will change your life. They're good people. Good mutants, who will understand you better than anyone else. They're fighting for everyone, not selfishly for one race."

Angel fought against my hold no longer, mutely following after me as I sprinted back to the group. Upon seeing his former master his grip tightened, but he didn't fight against me. His heart before Apocalypse reached him was already resentful of humans, but without the stone's control to push over the edge, he had his free will back, and that meant opening his eyes.

Wiping sweat from my brow, I- for once in five years- felt the small need to thank Thanos for the modifications he did to my body. The heat of Cairo and the dust in the air didn't bother me as much as it should have. But at the thought of actually thanking Thanos, I had to swallow down bile.

"Peter, no!"

Seemingly forgetting my earlier instructions about avoiding touching the stone, Peter ran for it as it fell from the chest plate. Though he didn't have a choice. We had no idea what would happen if it hit organic matter, but if it was like the Power Stone, it'd be disastrous. Our plan was going to hell, all the while, the young X-Men were hiding out in the building just ahead of us, likely confused.

Peter screamed in pain as soon as his fingers came into contact with the stone. His body glowed bright blue, hopeless against Apocalypse as he approached. That was until Ororo touched down and grabbed Peter to move him out of the way. She yelled out as the pain was diverted to her. Peter's screams lessened. Putting two and two together, I reached out for Ororo, gripping her arm.

As soon as I touched her skin, and the power of the Mind Stone was given to me, my mind was thrown back to nearly three and a half years ago when I was speaking to Nebula on one of her rare visits to Earth.

"I get flashbacks sometimes. Not only of what he did to me, those will never go away, but something else. There's something I'm missing. A fragment of a memory. The professor can't pull it out. Like he hid it."

"What do you know about the memory?"

"It was right after we landed at The Garden. In the grass... the wind was blowing in the trees. And Thanos was speaking to me. The words are all jumbled. But I can get Time Stone, war, and 'to bring you forth'."

"Father saw an oncoming war?"

"Maybe. But Doctor Strange saw millions of possible futures with the time stone, so he was probably just preparing for everyone. Still... I want to know what he said."

The pain brought me back. It was excruciating- my body destroying itself from the inside out. At least when I got dusted it didn't hurt. Someone grabbed my wrist, Scott. Angel grabbed Scott's shoulder. Nothing like welcoming him to the team with a deadly share of power.

It still hurt, but not as much as before.

Don't worry.

It was the professor, but his voice lacked his usual age. It held the same tone and maturity as the Young Professor giving his Apocalypse speech earlier. A quick inspection of the area told me that Young Scott, Kurt, Ororo- freshly a betrayer of her master, Hank, Peter, and Mystique had run out of their hideaway. From the sky came Magneto.

The scene was too good to be true. Too cheesy. Young allies coming out to help new allies without hesitation? Well, the professor probably explained the situation briefly. But their willingness to assist us was baffling.

Your Charles explained everything. I simply passed along the message.

Hand joined hand until the X-Men- young and old- each held the same insurmountable power. Apocalypse had long been frozen in shock and fear. The timeline differed in his defeat, but he would be done for all the same.

"Where's Jean?" I grunted, eyes screening for the redhead. She wasn't in our line of heroes, or in the surrounding area.

"Right here," Jean stepped out of the top floor of the hideaway building, walking on air. Staring down Apocalypse, she threw out her arms, and the Phoenix was released.

"Everyone now!"

Full force, everyone threw everything they had into the final attack. Without the stone to regain his followers' minds, Apocalypse was helpless against us. No shield he could conjure, no words he could say would stop us from completing our goal.

Apocalypse fell to the ground in a pile of dust, ironic considering what the full force of the stones did in the future. Peter dropped the stone onto the empty chest plate, the armor holding it like a bowl.

"What the hell is going on?" Young Peter was the first to speak above the tired, panting, "You're us. But you look old. And Angel is on our side now? Hi, I guess. And who's the girl in the blue? You're cute."

"Thanks?" I grimaced at the compliment, sharing an uncomfortable look with Future Peter.

Old Xavier rolled out, up and over different pieces of rubble thanks to his advanced wheelchair, "I would explain, but it would plunge this timeline into confusion. Logan travelling back to break off another timeline was risky enough. With that, I believe you all should forget what happened here and remember a different narrative."

Finger on his temple, the Professor removed everyone's memories, even Jean's, and replaced them with mostly accurate memories of what happened in our timeline, adding in Angel's switch. If either of the telepaths ever remembered, they'd be smart enough to forget again. For a split second, I almost stopped him in removing Jean's memories. If I could just ask her to help me, then Thanos could be out of my head for good.

"She's too unstable," the Professor sent me a warning glance, still in the process of handling everyone's memories, "This was the first time she used her power like that. Our Jean had matured much more, had better control. Don't risk it."

I didn't. I allowed the professor to finish the process. While they were still disoriented, we pressed our watches and arrived back at the compound. Even with the difficulties and divergent timeline, it was easy enough given the overall circumstances.

Peter was right across from me, the Time Stone in the Hulk's grasp. Of course it was so easy for him to carry it when it took double our team to handle the Mind Stone. Rushing forward, I hugged Peter tightly, landing a long kiss on his cheek.

"Why are you on the platform, weren't you staying back?"

"It's a long story I'll tell later. But I'm not under Thanos' control again. The sessions are working, and I'm safe around the stones. That's what matters."

"Did we get them all?"

"You telling me this'll actually work?"

Pulling away from Peter, I counted our numbers, pausing. Steve and Tony were off the platform in front of us, Rocket and Thor, Rhodey and Nebula, Bruce and Peter, Scott, Clint and-

"Hey Clint, where's Nat?"