I in no way own any part of the Marvel world, or Xmen characters that are mentioned, They are (c) to Marvel and Marvel alone.
All OC's are (c) to me. Please do not use under any circumstance.

Warning, the beginning is a bit gorey. And now we're off with the story!

*Dark Mage*
He sat high on his perch atop the church’s cathedral roof staring moodily out on the rapidly setting sun. The deep blues and purples appeared to melt into the black shape of the mountains and hillsides of Romania. He kept himself from shuddering as the memories of his past eight years in the experimenting lab assaulted him once again.
Once again he smelled the acrid smell of antiseptic and the taste of iron in his mouth. He felt the sensation of the needles plunging into his arms and the liquid fire entering his veins all over again. Then the images of his brother and sister’s deaths flashed in his mind. He covered his ears in an attempt to drown out the horrible shrieks that filled his mind and came back every time he remembered. It was worse torture than what the scientists did to him when he was a test subject for the military.

Everything that had been done to him had been done for one reason, one that most people wouldn’t believe until they saw the scars and the wings on his back. The scientists had attempted to use him to create a “perfect warrior” but they hadn’t succeeded, much to Val’s relief. They had tried to make him devoid of all emotions but they had failed when they forced him to watch his brother and sister’s deaths at the hands of one of their
torturers.

It was then that Val had snapped and his mutant powers had emerged. Because he had no control over his powers he couldn’t stop himself until after he had destroyed the torturer and the scientist that was in charge of the whole project. Only after this happened did he see what his powers had done to the two men. The damage that had been done was so horrible that he had put up a mental block so to this day he wouldn’t be able to remember what they had looked like after he had used his powers. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t use his powers again until he knew how to use them.

But it had been too late for his brother and sister. They had died during the
moments that he had been destroying their torturer and the head scientist. He had been so overcome with grief that he hadn’t noticed that the other scientists and guards were fleeing for their lives. When he had finally pulled himself together, he had freed the other subjects from their cells and then had destroyed the facilities so that they could never be used to torture or experiment on mutants ever again.

“Hey you, what are you doing up there?”

Val was rather startled to be brought out of his memories so abruptly. He glanced down and saw that it had been a portly built priest that had yelled up at him.

“I was watching the sunset, father.” He replied respectfully.

“Well get down from there! If you fell and got hurt, it wouldn’t be good for you, your family, or the church!” The priest exclaimed irritated.

“I don’t have parents.” Val replied as he started to descend the ladder that the priest had leaned up against the lower part of the cathedral roof.

“Oh.” He heard the priest say in a rather mortified tone.

Just then the wind rushed around Val, causing his trench coat to go flying up
around his arms, revealing the leathery bat wings that grew out of the middle of his back. Val jumped to the ground and pulled his trench coat down. He turned around and saw that the priest was staring at him with a shocked look on his face.

“Y-you’re a…a…”

“Mutant? Yeah.”

The priest stared at him wide eyed with shock not saying a word. Val couldn’t help but wonder what the priest would do now that he knew his secret. He hoped that the priest would at least give him an hour’s head start before he called in his appearance. Val was pretty sure that because of what he had done to the scientist and the torturer that the army would consider him dangerous and want him dead for what he had done.

“Come inside, you must be famished.” The priest finally said.

“You’re not the least bit afraid of what I could do to you?” Val asked skeptically.

“Well considering that you didn’t kill me when I found out that you were a
mutant, I don’t think that you’re that dangerous.”

“That’s were you’re wrong, father. I’ve been taught to kill men with my bare
hands, and I could kill you if I had a cause to.”

“Well I’ll just have to make sure that I don’t give you a reason to want me dead then, won’t I?”

“You are a weird one.” Val said shaking his head at the elderly priest.

“No, just a man that sympathizes with mutants, though I’ve never actually seen one this close before.” He admitted.

“Why would you sympathize with my kind?”

“Because scientists do horrible things to them, all in the name of science and it shouldn’t be permitted. They get away with murder and torture of young children because they have the mutant gene and it’s wrong. I believe that all people, whether they’re mutants or not are equal in God’s sight and should have the same rights.” The priest replied passionately.

“Don’t say anything, one of the brothers is coming towards us.” The priest
suddenly warned.

Val turned and saw a tall man with brown hair and blue eyes dressed in a course brown habit, like the priest’s walking towards them. When the brother got there, he looked Val over thoroughly before he turned to the priest and asked.

“Is he a mutant, Father Thomas?”

Val almost sucked in his breath at this question but caught himself before he could give himself away. Father Thomas gave him a knowing look and said.

“This is Brother Michael; he’s a mutant sympathizer here in the church’s
community, like me. Oh, I don’t believe that I caught your name.”

“Val.”

“That’s it?” Brother Michael asked with a slight frown.

“Valiant Mordell.” He complied.

Both men looked as thought they had been hit by a load of bricks when he said this. They quickly altered their expressions and looked at each other in stunned silence and then back at him. Val felt caution rise in him at their reaction and couldn’t help but wonder what was being said about him.

“The authorities say that you killed thirty men in cold blood before you escaped.” Brother Michael commented.

“T hat’s not true, I only killed two men. One was the head scientist and the other was the man that tortured my twin brother and younger sister until they died.” Val replied.

“But why would he do such a thing?” Father Thomas asked horrified.

“Because they learned that their mutant powers would make them impossible to control in the way he wanted to. I guess the scientists were afraid that my siblings would become a danger to human kind. It seems when something is feared it’s destroyed before it has a chance to prove it’s not as bad as it was first believed to be,” Val replied.

“Though it also could have been the fact that the head scientist was a sadistic psychopath which was why he had it done.” He add rather bitterly.

“Well, we’ll have to get you out of Romania, there are soldiers looking all over for you. Its’ said that their orders are to shoot you on sight.” Brother Michael informed him.

“It figures. Where would I go though? I don’t know anyone that lives anywhere else but in Romania.” Val said.

“America would be the best place for you to go. We have contact with a mutant association that teaches young mutants like yourself how to harness their powers and use them for the good of others.” Brother Michael informed him.

“But how would I get there? I’d never be able to get on a plane to get out of here, they’re too heavily guarded by soldiers, and I’d get caught before the plane ever took off!”

“Don’t worry about that, just hope that there won’t be a raid on the monastery before tomorrow night.”

* * * *

Val awoke with a jolt. There were yelling voices, stampeding feet, and sounds of guns going off nearby. He shuddered and took a quick peek out of the window near his bed. What he saw made his heart jump in his chest. A soldier aimed a gun in at him and ordered him to climb out of the recently debarred window. Val did as he was told, leaving his trench coat in a heap in the floor of the room.


A look of utter horror etched its way onto the soldier’s face when he caught sight of the eight-foot long bat wings growing out of Val’s back. Val took that moment to rip the gun out of the soldier’s hands. He whipped it around in one fluid motion and aimed it at the soldier’s head. The soldier gasped at this sudden turn of events, and glared rather angrily back at Val.

“Val the gate will be ready for you to go…” Val heard Brother Michael’s voice trail off when he came upon the scene.

“Put your hands on your head and march,” Val ordered the soldier.
“Where’s the gate?”

“Uh it’s a ways into the woods, I’ll take you there.” Brother Michael said, taking the lead a good six feet in front of the soldier.

“How can you aid a murderer, brother?” The soldier asked coldly.

“He gave two men the justice that they deserved.” Michael replied calmly.

“You have your facts wrong Brother; he killed thirty men, old scientists and
young men in cold blood. How can you call that justice, brother?” The soldier demanded.

“It’s you that has the facts wrong. I only killed two men, the head scientists and the man that tortured my brother and sister until they were dead.” Val said as they walked past the monastery grounds.

The images flooded his memory and he saw it all again, his thirteen year old sister being shocked with electricity until she had fallen forward limp in the chair, dead. His brother being tortured with hot coals until the burns had blistered three times over and had popped. The agony in his brother’s fifteen-year-old face kept playing over and over in his mind, until at last his brother had blacked out and died not feeling the other horrible torture they had done to him. He felt ice like tears fall from his face as he remembered
the horror and anger that had burst inside him and had caused him to destroy the two people that were responsible for their deaths. He had promised himself after loosing his temper and letting his anger consume him that he would never let it get the better of him ever again.

“For your information,” Val began as they walked through the dense woods. “It was the torture of my siblings that caused me to lose control of my anger and caused the emergence of my mutant powers. If I had been able to control my powers I might have been able to stop the deaths of the two men. However that is not the case, it takes time and practice for mutants to learn to control their powers, like a boy learning to use a gun for the first time.”

“But I always thought that when a mutant got it powers he or she could control them completely from the beginning.” The soldier said.

“Well whoever taught you that was wrong. I don’t even know what I’m doing until I do it. So it has to take time to learn how to do different things with whatever powers a mutant gets.” Valiant told him.

“But why would the army lie to me about something like that?” the soldier asked.

“Let me guess, they’d rather all mutants were killed off so they can’t prove them wrong. If the rest of the population learned of this they’d know that mutants are like them in more ways than one. And if that were to happen there would be a lot more mutant sympathizers in Romania then there are now.” Valiant stated.

“Damnit! I do not like being lied to.” The soldier swore.

“The gate’s just up ahead.” Brother Michael said.

“Stop right there! A voice came from behind them.

Val froze and slowly un-cocked the trigger of the gun and held it up in the air. He stayed where he was not moving a muscle as Brother Michael and the soldier turned to face the man behind him.

“How many are there?” Val hissed in the soldier’s direction.

“Five.” He mouthed back.

“Take the gun from the mutant, soldier.” The same voice ordered.

The soldier took the gun from him and gave him an imperceptible nod. Val knew then that the soldier was going to help get them to the gate.

The soldier suddenly brought the gun up and a shot rang out by Val’s head,
missing him by inches. Val whirled and caught the nearest soldier off guard and snapped his neck. Between the two of them they took out the remaining three soldiers before they could get a chance to contact other forces.

Val turned and found Brother Michael staring at them horror stricken. Then Val felt the barrel of a gun pressed against the back of his head. Val felt anger seeping into his pores for trusting the soldier to help him.

I knew I couldn’t trust him. Why the hell did I then? He thought to himself.

He felt the gun suddenly release from he back of his head. A shot rang out and Brother Michael fell to the ground face first. The anger grew beyond control and moving quickly, he caught the soldier and threw him to the ground. The next moment the gun was pressed against the soldier’s throat.

“Why did you kill him?” Val demanded.

“It’s not Brother Michael, check the body.” The soldier told him, holding his arm gingerly.

Keeping the gun pointed at the soldier, Val backed up and turned the body over with his right foot. He quickly glanced down and was surprised to see that the face was melting away, revealing a metal skull underneath. He stood up and walked back to the soldier, wiping the sweat off of his forehead with his shirtsleeve.

“What is that?”

“It’s a robot that some scientist created to hunt down mutants. The real Brother Michael is in custody of the authorities.”

“Well that rises as a problem, he’s the only one who knows where the
teleportation gate is.”

“Not necessarily, I know where it is.” Came a voice from nearby.

Val and the soldier looked around until they finally spied the speaker, and was she a sight to behold! She was covered from head to toe, or so they guessed because she was wearing a long dress, with silver blue fur. She had short reddish brown hair, and brown eyes. Strangely though, her fox ears and tail only made her all the more stunning.

“And you would know where it is because?” Val asked curiously.

“Because I was given the location so that I go through tonight, so I can show you if you’d like.” She replied.

“That would be appreciated. You can go on your way, soldier.” Valiant said
compliantly.

“Thank you but I would rather go with you to make sure you get away all right, if that’s okay with you.” The soldier replied.

“We may need his help more than you would think, sir.” The girl told him.

“Who exactly are you and where did you come from?” Val asked.

“I’m Jodee McGinnis, and I was originally from America, before my parents were murdered and I was kidnapped and then sold to scientists here for an experiment subject. I only recently escaped, as I am assuming you did also.”

“That is true. So how much farther away is the gate from here?” Val asked.

“Five leagues, so we will want to start walking if we want to get there when it opens for us.” She replied and began to walk farther into the woods.


Val and the soldier followed closely behind her so not to lose her. They walked on for quite some way, until she came to an abrupt halt and lay down on her chest. They copied her and slowly inched their way up to her side, to see what had caused her to get out of sight. What they saw almost made them curse but they caught them selves and stared in utter despair at what they saw.

The gate was about a hundred feet away from them, illuminated by truck lights of army trucks and surrounded by armed soldiers of the Romanian forces. In the trees around the clearing they saw shadowy figures moving back and forth, ready to take out anyone that walked into the clearing. Val knew then that there was only one way that they would be able to get to the gate and that would be to break his promise and use his powers

“I’m going in you two stay here and wait my signal.” He whispered to the other two.

The soldier and Jodee turned to stare at him in shock. Jodee reached out and touched his arm, causing him to pause and look at her once more. She didn’t say a word, she just let him know by the look in her eyes to be careful and that she believed in him.

Val felt himself grow calm and serious, and knew that it was now or never. He concentrated on his power and felt it build in force field around him. Still concentrating he reached over and touched both Jodee and the soldier at the same time, within seconds they were also enshrouded with the same dark purple force field. Then without another thought he flew down the hillside and landed in the clearing.

Bullets began to fly all around him, but because of his force field he wasn’t hit once. Focusing his powers to his hands blue flames erupted from them and he began to throw it into the vehicles and on the large canons causing them to become engulfed in the bright blue flames and blow up. Before the soldiers knew what was happening he let his powers loose on their weapons causing their guns to melt in their hands. They screamed when the hot metal touched the skin on their hands and ran screaming from the clearing,
trying to find water to put them out of their misery. But Val soon found out that he wasn’t alone.

A snarling man suddenly pounced on him and began to tear at him, only to get shocked by the force field of power that Val had put around himself. He jumped back and let loose a hair-raising howl as he panted staring at Val with cold lifeless eyes. Val eyed the man, and then without thinking he pointed at the man and let loose a stream of blue fire into the man’s chest. The man was thrust backwards into a tree, breaking it in half and fell to the ground smoking. Val walked a little closer to make sure that the man was
dead before he motioned for his companions to join him at the gate.

When they joined him, He saw that they had astonished shocked looks on their faces that he knew weren’t going to leave anytime soon. The soldier eyed the ground around the gate and whistled at all the damage that had been done. Jodee just continued to stare at him wide eyed in amazement.

It was only seconds later that the gate shimmered and there was a mirror like surface in front of them.

“Well I guess this is goodbye then.” The soldier said, turning to leave.

“It doesn’t have to be, you can come with us to America.” Jodee told him.

“It would probably be better off for me if I do. If I stay here I’ll most likely be prosecuted for aiding your escape from Romania.” He said, then walked through the gate and disappeared.

“Well Dark Mage, shall we go to the other side?” She asked, offering him her a arm.

“Why’d you call me that?” Val asked staring at her with confusion.

“Because, Val, your powers remind me of magic.” She replied with a smile.

“Dark Mage, I like the name. Let’s go then.”


And with that they stepped through the gate and into whatever was on the other side, in America.