Iceman

IN CASE YOU'RE JUST JOINING US: Reuniting with his old friends, the other original four students of Professor Charles Xavier, Iceman found himself in a life or death battle with the Shadow King's freshly recruited assassins -- Wolverine, Shadowcat, Pete Wisdom, Jessica Drew, and X-Man -- the Shadow X-Men.

During the fight with Shadowcat, Iceman almost lost his life as she prepared to phase his head through the mansion's kitchen floor. In those moments, the months of stockpiled, and hidden away angst, manifested itself.

He was able to reach down inside, and channel it into the focus he needed to defeat the wily ninja, and rejoin his friends in a mission to bring down Ahmal Farouk and his forces once and for all.

Now, after having stared down his utmost inner-demons, as well as the faces of evil in the outside world, Bobby Drake's going to find out once and for all that that running away from his problems isn't always going to work...

And it just may be the hard way.

It had been three months since the woman's death, and yet he was still mourning. Throughout those months, so many atrocities had happened. The interdimensional invasion of the Sons of Set being one of them. But it was an event only foreshadowing what would soon follow...

The Shadow King's ascension.

His return caught them all off guard, and with the forces of HYDRA and the defunct Apocalypse Dawn, he was more powerful then ever. With the united forces of the X-Men, X-Force, the Exiles, and Excalibur, all working in unison across the globe, the Shadow King's invasion was quickly remedied, however.

Though there were causalities, essentially Xavier's dream had once again been reconstructed. Mutants the world over were more inspired by it, and even more recognized and respected by the public as heroes.

And yet, Bobby Drake still mourned for that single death, that had occurred three months ago...

Scott Summers, the long-standing field leader of the X-Men known as Cyclops, had allowed him and the others to return to the mansion for as long as they wished after their victory. He, among others, accepted.

Since then, visiting the graves of those once friends or comrades fallen became a sort of nightly ritual at the mansion. Tonight though, he seemed to have had company.

The air around him shifting, and the sound of grass bending underneath the weight of the man's boots was enough to catch his attention. Bobby turned his head to see who had approached.

Out of all the mansion's past and present occupants who would have approached him that night, he would have never in a million years guessed it would be him...

"Gambit?" Bobby said, his brow creasing over in surprise. He looked the thief up and down, and Remy just simply took a drag from his cigarette and stared at him. It suddenly made sense, and he turned back to the grave. "How'd you know?"

"Remy still keepin' tabs on this ol' place," Gambit offered somberly as he flicked away the butt of his cigarette and stepped up to Bobby's side. The wind was picking up from the South, causing his trench coat to billow in the wind at his side.

"Hmph," Bobby snorted as he dug his hands into his pockets and continued to stare listlessly into the gravestone. "Seems like everyone is lately..."

"What brings ya here, Drake?" Remy inquired listlessly as his red pupils went over the words etched in the gravestone.

Bobby sighed and paused to give the question some consideration. He wasn't too sure himself, so he shrugged before letting the first thing come to mind out, "I guess you could say it was the memory of the good you could once find in people..."

"Heh," Remy tilted his head to the side as he knelt down to the recently laid dirt over the tortured soul's grave. He ran his hand over it lightly, feeling it's cool and still moist texture against his exposed finger tips. "I can identify wit' dat..."

"Hey, Remy...?" Bobby started to say. Though the wind suddenly started to howl louder and blow faster then it had before, there was no response. Bobby looked to his side where Remy had been standing, but the thief was gone.

When Bobby looked back to Marrow's grave, however, there was a black and white playing card sticking out from the dirt. The Queen of Clubs, to be exact...

Bobby strode out across the Xavier Institute's lawn, his hands tucked comfortably into his loose jacket pockets. Breathing in the night's fresh air, his sorrowful blue eyes carefully gazed up to the moon's twilight.

It would always seem to give him a sense of relaxation in times like these... The moon, that is. Tonight however, it seemed to remind him of those Godlike beings who settled in the middle of New York not too long.

Apparently, they were only temporarily setting up shop, seeking out followers they could bring a blissful existence to. Everyone at Harry's Hideaway was buzzing at the idea time, which is what had caught his attention. Immediately though, he hadn't bought it. It seemed like the oldest trick in the book, as far as Trojan Horses go.

Since then, he hadn't heard much of it. As Iceman, he was never too keen on the news anyway, unless it was something brought to his attention when he was with the X-Men. He had always felt there was something more fulfilling in his life to see to.

However, now he wasn't so sure about that. He's started to find himself surfing the news channels whenever the days were slow. It sort of made him feel like he was still doing his part, even though deep down inside he was still feeling guilty for not using his powers with the X-Men.

Soon he found himself strolling through the orchards surrounding the mansion grounds. It was the shortest way back to Salem Center to cut through the forestry, and then ice slide across a field or two until he reached the back roads running on the outside of town.

His eyes trailed down from the night's sky, and started to absorb the familiar grounds. Fun times, but fun enough to go through the pain and anguish that soon followed and consumed his life as an X-Man? He wasn't sure. It didn't seem like life ever gave him a break, within or without the X-Men.

The word "running" suddenly came to mind.

Deep down inside, that's what he knew he had done all his life. Deep down inside, he knew a lot more about himself the relationships he shared with people then people gave him credit for. But confronting his problems when he didn't to meant more of the mind racking drama he wasn't willing to deal with.

Even if it meant running away, he wanted to live his life for himself. Only, he wasn't sure what that meant anymore. A life without fear, and pain, and loss, maybe? One like he should have been able to so long ago, if his mutant powers hadn't manifested that fateful night so long ago.

That seemed to be the deciding factor in how he would live his life. His mutant powers were what have guided his life all this time, a blessing and a curse. He couldn't have one without the other, and deciding what that meant for him was starting to become clearer and clearer all of a sudden...

Snapping back to reality, Bobby stopped dead in his tracks as his brow shot up in confusion. With so much on his mind, he hadn't realized he somehow wondered in the wrong direction and was lost. The moonlight was hidden from him by the thick tree branches hanging overhead, leaving him barely able to see about.

For those first few moments, the thought of using his powers to switch his vision to infrared as to find his way out. But when the idea of having to admit he couldn't make it through life without the luxuries of his mutant abilities shortly followed, he grew stubborn.

"You know..." a rugged, familiar tone came to suggest, "I can make it all go away, son."

Bobby's eyes went wide in shock as the abrupt voice came upon him, and he spud around on the ball of his foot to investigate. There, nearly an inch away from his face, was the man who had spoken, and Bobby nearly choked on his own scream.

Startled, he instinctively jolted backwards, but the heel of his foot hooked onto a large rock and down he went. But it wasn't down comically onto his bottom he went, nor would it be back against his shoulders painfully. Instead, he had slipped down into what seemed to be the endless rabbit hole...

It was all a rushing blur of moonlight and stars, shadowy trees and wet ground, as he tumbled down the muddy slope. He was rolling at what seemed unimaginable speeds until his body finally slid to what would almost be a stop, until the sharp pain of his head smacking against a rock imbedded in the muddy dip ended it all first.

For what would be the first time that night, the world around Bobby Drake swirled away into darkness...

It was the wailing like, infant cries in the distance that woke him.

Bobby Drake's eyes felt glazed and tired, but he sat up from the bed he was sitting in. Everything around him felt sticky and damp, but that wasn't his focus at the moment. Those cries...

The room he was in was surrounded in shadows, the only light beaming down on him and the bed he was in. Slowly, he tossed the blanket aside and sat at the bed's edge. His eyes trailed the room, and the distance cries faded, though only to be replaced by the soft, nearby wimpering.

In the shadows, the source of that wimpering became evident. A finely tanned, brown haired young woman was positioned on her knees, her hands before her. She was knee deep in blood. The very same blood covered her thighs and groin, and hands...

Her hair was thrown about, tangled and ravaged. And a light shinned on her form, revealing in the pool of blood an infant child of only a few months. It's eyes were rolled back into it's head, and what little hair it had sticky with blood.

"Kitty?" Bobby said, horrified by her appearance and the child in the pool of blood. His eyes trailed down her ragged, wimpering form, down to her hands. He observed, "Your hands... They're covered with bl-- "

"You killed her, Bobby..." Kitty sobbed quietly as she stared at her trembling, blood drenched hands. She heaved and raised up to her feet, and lifted her head to him, her bloodshot eyes a haunting terror that would shake his very soul. "You filled her lungs with blood... stomped her growing heart to pieces... and smothered her life away..."

"No..." Bobby tried to call out to her, his heart breaking at the very sound of her words. At the very thought of her implications. He started to approach her with a hand extended out to her in good compassion, but was sharply halted dead in his tracks.

"I was under Shadow King's influence at the time!" Kitty suddenly screamed at him in defiance, her voice cracking and her hands clenching into fists. She slowly started to stand up to her feet, and pointed an accusing finger at Bobby. "It wasn't my fault! I didn't DESERVE this!"

Her face tightened into a thousand wrinkles, and she put up her blood stained hands over it to hide her weeping from him. The dry sobbing had started to return, and after a moment, she ran her hands down her face and gestured down to her abdomen.

A tear ran down Bobby's cheek as he watched Kitty Pryde break down into shambles, blood smeared all over her face. She pleaded to him as she looked down to her abdomen, and then up to his torn expression, "She didn't deserve this..."

"No..." Bobby muttered with a heavy breath, and he swallowed hard. He raised up his hands to his face, and found they to were drenched in the same blood Kitty's were. He looked back up to her, frantically trying to reason. "Kitty, no! I -- I didn't know! I couldn't of known!"

"You MONSTER!!" Kitty cursed at him, her face turning red as her eyes welled up with tears. She shook her fists and her head wildly, stomping her feet on the ground violently.

Bobby could only watch her display of aggression in a shameful awe. Finally, when had she stopped, a kitchen knife of sorts had appeared in her head. She was panting, breathing, soothing, calm breaths.

Then gradually, tip of the blade came up above her breast and below her right shoulder, guided by her hand. Down the blade came, cutting deep gashes across her torso all the way down from her right shoulder blade to the leftmost edge of her pelvis.

A similar stroke followed down from the left shoulder down to the rightmost edge of her pelvis, slow and precise. An X was formed out of the deep incisions, blood pouring out from them across her pink night gown, and staining it.

Kitty Pryde, the tears dry across her cracked, emotion torn face, then raised the blade up to Bobby in defiance. And she charged towards him with a horrible, vengeful scream that would deep into his soul for as long as he lived.

"NOOOO!!!" He cried out, but she was upon him, and the world twisted and turned, and swirled away into a blur of green fluids and bubbles...

"Bobby..." called a woman's comforting voice. The owner of the name didn't respond, however. The throbbing pain registering in his head was too distracting, and the rest of his senses were having trouble coming around.

"No..." was all he said, almost as if he was struggling, or fighting with something within himself. His hands twitched and his head rocked side to side.

"Oh, Bobby..." she continued to call despite his restless behavior, but it was not the compassion within her force that would bring him out of his incapacitated void. It would be the gentle stroke against his face.

"NO!" Bobby shouted in a gasp, and his head neck went stiff as his eyelids shot open.  The woman withdrew her hand abruptly, allowing him his space as he began to come to. His restlessness ceased, and he swallowed hard as he looked up to her.

"Jean...?" He said in disbelief, his voice sounding exasperated, yet groggy at the same. Bobby's eyes started to flutter open, but soon he felt like rolling them into the back of his head again. "Owwhh... God..."

"Close," Jean Grey-Summers said as she watched him sit up, and though having long been an adult, she almost couldn't help herself from giggling. A smile crept up on her face as she looked down to Bobby, and she tilted her head to the side. "It's nice to see you, too, Bobby."

Jean leaned down to get a better look at him, pressing her hands on her thighs as she did so. Bobby stirred a bit underneath his weight as he sat up right, and pressed his palm up against his forehead as he looked at her. "What happened to me?" he asked.

"You took a nasty fall," she explained, continuing to smile down at him. She reached out and touched the gash across his forehead gently, wincing to herself at the pain it must be causing him, but doing nothing to relieve him of it. "How's your head?"

"It seems to be taking the butt of my misery lately, actually," he muttered as he started to move up to his feet. His lips curled to the side of his face in a sneer, and he nodded to the redheaded beauty. "Thanks for asking, though."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Jean said sympathetically, though from behind a warm smile. She was staring him straight in the eye, as if she was curious about something. Trying to analyze an aspect of him unforeseen, and she couldn't help but giggle once again.

"What's so funny?" Bobby demanded, hiding back a smirk at her amusement. He picked his nose just to make sure it was clean, and then began looking around the wilderness when another question hit him. "And hey, what are you doing here, anyway --?"

"You've never, seriously or remotely, been attracted to me, have you Bobby Drake?" Jean suggested, a bit of a twinkle in her eye as she looked to her bewildered friend. "Scott, Warren, Hank... but never, honestly, you," she clarified. "Why is that?"

"Jean..." Bobby started to say, squinting his eyes, seemingly unsure how to respond. Then he just let the words flow like. "That's simple. "You were like a sister to me back then. A bombshell for a sister, sure... but I remember first meeting you.

"By the way you acted, the tone in your voice, that unsure attitude... You seemed like you were feeling the same way I was feeling. Alone in a new, and foreign world that you had no ever idea existed... it was scary," Bobby laughed, his hands crossing over his chest in reflection as his eyes glared to the ground. He looked back up to Jean, and shrugged to her.

"Warren though, he was all calm and cool about it... Hank was blown away and almost excited by the opportunity, and Scott... pfft," he huffed, shaking his head with a bit of a stifled chuckle. "You know he was lovin' every bit of his new role as field leader. He found a place where he belonged..."

Bobby trailed off, taking a breath before continuing to explain to her. "You and I, though... well... I think we were different," he seemingly observed, and she nodded to him reaffirmingly. "We knew this didn't seem like the world we were meant for... the lives we were going to live... It was like we sorta protected each other on the way, y'know?"

Jean simply stood there, her radiance and livelihood relaying everything Bobby had said. It was all true, and just hearing the words come from his mouth... how he placed every aspect of it was like that first day at the mansion. It was a beauty.

"Heh... Maybe you did a better job protecting me then I did you..." He trailed off again, thinking about how he was off getting a useless degree in accounting while the Dark Phoenix had enveloped her, and all the X-Men needed him.

He looked back up to her, his face turning to stone as he prepared for what he was about to say. "Look Jean, while we're on the topic, I just wanna say -- "

"I know, Bobby," Jean cut him off, her voice chiming in and her smile seemingly illuminating the entire, dark and dank orchard. She reached out to him, and they hugged each other tightly, her head resting on her shoulder. She sighed, and said, "You don't need to say anymore."

It was then, the sound of rustling leaves and wet foot steps broke their embrace. Bobby and Jean turned to the source of the sound. Though Jean grew opaque and distant at the sight of the man, Bobby's eyes lit up in surprise.

"There you are," William laughed to himself as he grapevined down the muddy bank, decisive and gradual in his steps, as sure not to misstep and fall. "Boy, you never were too graceful on your feet..."

"Dad..." Bobby said softly under his breath. He remembered now what had happened, but for some reason, he didn't feel compelled to judge the man's presence that night. He knew it was a crossroads he was it, and it just seemed right that his father would be there with him.

"Come on, Robert," William suggested as he took another step towards Bobby, and nodded his head over his shoulder. There was an air of sincere objectivity within him rarely seen in the man, and it was eerie for Bobby to think his father was even capable of such calm and cool behavior. William Drake again suggested, "Let's go for a walk."

Before Bobby could give him a response, he felt Jean's hand press up against his cheek, guiding his face back around to hers. His blue eyes reached out to her emerald greens, questioning her for ever distracting him from his father's gaze...

"You have to come with one of us, Bobby..." Jean declared to him with an almost dreamy voice. She dropped her hand from the side of his face, and took a step back away from, somberly clarifying, "But only one of us, though."

"Why?" Bobby asked as he shook his head in confusion, not understanding what she was trying to get through to him.

"So we can show you what you need to be shown," Jean meekly replied.

"My father -- " Bobby started to say, trying to explain to her why it would be so important for him to go with him. He wouldn't get the chance though.

"Come on," William repeated, interrupting his son's words. Bobby glared over his shoulder at his father, and the man continued to say, "Let's go for that walk."

Bobby paused for a moment, and then slowly nodded. He looked back to Jean to tell her what he had decidedly, only he was surprised to find she was already gone without a trace.

Quietly, he turned around and rubbed the sudden tension he was feeling out of the back of his head. Looking back up to his father, he saw the man simply standing there at the head of the mud bank he had came down, waiting.

"Why does this feel like a dream?" Bobby asked, almost rhetorically as he began to make his way towards his father.

"The best things always do, son," William said with a chuckle as his son joined him, and he put his arm around Bobby's shoulder. Bobby gave him a quizzical look, but William disregarded it to say, "Hey, let me ask you something."

"What?" Bobby replied, his eyes trailing to the soft, muddy ground as they began to walk out of the clearing they were in, and further into the forest.

William Drake braced himself for what he was about to say, taking in a cool breath and elegantly, almost poetically, asking his son, "What is it that you want most, out of anything in the world?"

"To have never been born as a mutant..." the words rolled off Bobby's tongue sarcastically, and he rolled his eyes with a huff. He was only partially serious, but his father didn't necessarily see it that way.

"I see," his father stated solemnly, and their venture deeper into the orchard came to a halt. The forestry around them seemingly melted away around them, transforming into that of a busy, movie theater's lobby area.

One that Bobby Drake instantaneously recognized as the theater he and his friends in high school often visited in his home town of Long Island. It was a sight to truly behold, at least for him, as he hadn't visited it in years.

"Feel like seeing how things would have been that night if you weren't a mutant?" William asked with a look of magnificent brilliance on his face. He jabbed at Bobby's shoulder playfully, and took his son by the arms, hunching his brows up at him. "Eh? How 'bout this, huh?"

Bobby turned away from the sight of the theater's lobby and looked deep into his aged face. Though his eyes were tainted by said age, something about them seemed to glow longingly.

With a sigh, Bobby breathed out in realization, "You're not really my dad, are you?"

"No, I'm not," the image of his father stated plainly, though with a lilting, proud smile at his observation. 'William' stared at his son for a moment, as if choosing his next set of words carefully. "Let's just say I'm a guardian angel... Finally answering a lost prayer."

"Waitasec," Bobby protested, throwing his hands up and furrowing his brow. "How do you expect me to -- ?"

"Shhh," William Drake said, a delighted smile creeping up on his face as he pointed out to the entrance of the movie theater's lobby. "Look."

Bobby looked away from the spitting image of his father, and was astounded by what he saw. Amongst the various teenagers who were making their way into the lobby, two in particularly would stand out in his mind...

FROSTBYTE

Got any chilling comments regarding this ish? Hazaah!

Talk about a big fat disappointment this issue was. Originally, I had so much more written and planned, but do to conflicting continuity probs with another writer, the story was debunked. In fact, I actually wrote most of this issue (a few edits aside) over six months ago! Oh well. Let's just consider it a break in the storm after the massive projects I took part in last month, eh?

That said... it's the beginning of the end!... well, sorta. Everyone hitch a ride for the rest of "WHEN TOMORROW NEVER COMES," which I hope to have out by the end of the month. My little "bi-weekly schedule" didn't exactly come to pass, if you all hadn't noticed, especially with the monster that was Brad and I's hit Shadow War special "X-MEN: FOREVER" so close behind us.

Because of that, I've decided now that I won't make any promises on when I release anymore. Sorry all, but you know it's for the better. x_X

Also, in case you kind folks hadn't noticed, this issue is considerably smaller then last issue. To some, it's probably a great relief. To others, a big, fat, disappointing kick in the prostate. Either way, I hope I'm not lynched for this regression to my usual norm. It's not a bad thing, I swear! I just thought I'd let you all know, in case it was a let down or something. Peace out.

Cory Wiegel
December 6th, 2003