R I S E

And then she and Kurt were being lifted bodily off the ground by a too-strong embrace she was very familiar with, as well.

"Rogue!" she gasped in delight. "You're here, too? Who all is 'we'? Oh man, it's so good to see you again! I'd basically given up hope!"

Not really, not ever, but she'd certainly made her peace living here, learning the language as best she could, learning on Rama functioned behind the scenes, his goals, his strengths and weaknesses. All while trying to figure out how to run.

But the running had been taken care of for her.

"As well as finding a means to return home," Kurt added, nodding down at the salvaged tech. "The good Doctor McCoy has been working on a device, using bits of this Rama Tut's technology. We were here to find more in the wake of the Sandstormer's siege." He smiled brightly. "But we found something far more precious than that."

"I've been here!" she told him, holding his face in both her hands, watching the shadows play over his velvety blue fur. "For six months! I started out in a small village in the desert. This nice family kept me for a few months, and brought me to Rama-Tut the next time they needed to come in to market, and I've been in this place ever since. It's nuts in there! I don't know when he's from, but it's past the 90s, I'll tell you that much!"

Marry? Rama Tut? That pharaoh had designs on marrying Rapunzel? Well... Kurt couldn't fault the man for good taste, he supposed. But he certainly wasn't about to let some time-displaced despot take his Rapunzel. No, no one and nothing was going to do that, again.

"No sooner said than done, Liebling." Kurt smiled, pressing a kiss to Rapunzel's lips. And in a flash of smoke, the pair appeared far from the battlefield.

"Sunflower?" Rogue's voice, and the sound of various bits of tech dropping to the dune beneath their feet, interrupted the sweet embrace. "Holy hell!"

A sound caught her attention -- a sort of clinking sound, like someone shifting amongst the broken robot parts -- and her immediate assumption was that someone was alive, but buried under rubble.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped out of the shadows, just in time to see a familiar cloud of smoke, accompanied by a familiar BAMF and the smell of sulfur.

Kurt!

He was gone, and Rapunzel stood there, heart pounding, tears stinging her eyes. Kurt was here, somewhere! She wanted to race out into the desert, see if she could find him! But where on Earth would she start? She couldn't just tear off into the desert unprepared! But what was she supposed to do?!

And then, another BAMF, and he was back, and she gasped.

Had he not chosen to teleport that one, final time, he would not have heard his own name called. A voice so familiar. Could it be? He had spent months hoping, praying. So many days, he and the others had spent combing the surrounding deserts, looking for any sign of any fellow X-Man. Kurt, himself, longing for nothing more than to find some sign of her. Until he turned, spying Rapunzel, garbed in flowing white, every bit the angel she was, flinging herself into his arms.

To think, he could easily have decided to end his salvage mission and never realized what he had really been looking for was right here. The Lord did work in mysterious ways, no?

Outside the gates, she could hear the oncoming army's shouts of, 'Survival of the fittest!' and it brought a chill to her she'd never quite known. Those words were all-too familiar, a sentiment that Magnito had shared, not long ago.

Magnito. What a strange person to think of here and now, displaced in time and space. Despite being surrounded by palace servants and slaves, and having the attention of a god-king, she'd never felt quite so alone. Even Magnito would be a welcome face.

Rama-Tut was from the future, it was true, but from what she could glean, he was just a man. Sure, he had the technological advantage, but he was still human, mortal. Not even a mutant from the future. He tried to curry her favor, talking about how she understood what it was like to travel through time to the distant past, but he was from far farther ahead than even she.

"Aren't you afraid?" she wondered as the shouts and roars of battle reached her ears again and again.

"What is there to be afraid of, my dear? I'm far more protected than any of them, and I'm not doing any of the fighting, myself."

"I've seen war and cruelty like you couldn't imagine," Rapunzel sighed. "If you suppress a people long enough, they'll eventually rise up, and eventually they'll be too much for you."

"Nothing is too much for me," Rama-Tutu assured her. "My robots will protect me, and my shields will keep them out of here. I have nothing at all to fear. Logos has it well in hand."

Logos was another problem. The man was cruel, delighted in the suffering of the slaves, and lorded over them that he had the superior might. The sooner she could get away from him, the better.

"Do not fret over me. The moment this uprising is trampled, I'll have you for my bride, and you'll have nothing to fear, either."

"Excuse me, what?" Rapunzel asked. A mixture of disgust and fury flowed through her, and she couldn't keep it off her face. "I never agreed to that!"

"You would disobey your Pharaoh?" he asked with infuriating calm.

"You would order me?" she countered. And then she remembered the ruse she'd been crafting for the past several months. Never before had it been so difficult to stick to a plan. "This is not how you woo a lady! Besides, I'm not sure a priestess ought to be marrying a Pharaoh. It seems a conflict of interest. If I'm an extension of you, then it's like you're marrying yourself!"

A massive shudder shook the building, and Rapunzel took the opportunity to move several feet away from him. "What the hell was that?!" she wondered, and rushed to the window.

A massive plume of dust swirled through the air, and a strangled trumpeting sound let her know that Logos' massive battle elephant had somehow crashed into the inner wall.

"Get to safety, dear," Rama-Tut told her as robotic guards hurried from the room. "We can continue this discussion later."

Like hell they would.

Once she was secured in her room, Rapunzel deactivated her powers, reverting her hair to short and brown and so much lighter weight. She remembered Kurt telling her that he thought of this as the real her, and her heart ached. She missed him so much. What had happened to him? Had he been sent to a different time? Was he even still alive?

Concern for the elephant, as well as Rama's soldiers and the warriors who'd invaded, she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and head to hide her features and headed out to view the aftermath, using a secret passage from the room to make her way out.

The pharaoh's general was soon bested. Nur's sword was poised to strike... But the mutant had stayed his hand. Logos would live, taken prisoner. "Well I'll be..." Rogue mused. "Thought for sure Nur was gonna take his head. Apocalypse sure wouldn't have held back."

"Perhaps there is hope yet," Kurt offered. And yet, could so much history really be rewritten by one act of mercy...?

"Kurt, Rogue." Professor Xavier's voice filled their minds now, as the Sandstormers drew back and Rama Tut's forces retreated into the city to lick their wounds. "Proceed with your salvage operations. But remember: you must remain unseen."

"You're up, Elf," Rogue said to Kurt with a grin. The plan was simple: Kurt would teleport in and out, snagging as much tech as he could, and then he and Rogue would carry it all back to Hank's hidden lab.

Kurt patted his sister's shoulder. "I shall only be a moment."

We now know that the loopiness mom's experiencing is a UTI, which can cause confusion and delirium in elder people, so she's at the hospital getting antibiotics and once she's more aware we can go from there.

Only it was truly ancient.

Whenever she was, the Great Pyramid was not yet built.

The hut she'd made her way towards had been inhabited by a kind family, but she couldn't understand a word they said. Still, they took pity on her and took her in, feeding her and dressing her in clothes more befitting their setting.

She stayed with them a few days, helping out around the house as she was able, playing with the two young children, and learning a little bit of the language. Mostly through pantomime, they managed to convey that they were going to bring her to market with them, and from there, see if they could gain audience with the Pharaoh.

His palace was... out of time. The structure was huge and gleaming, and made in a way that was futuristic, even to her own mind.

"I've heard of 'ancient aliens' but this is ridiculous," she muttered to herself. Still, she proceeded in, not sure what she'd find. Her life as an X-Man had led her to expect the unexpected. If she'd traveled through time, maybe this Pharaoh had, too.

Rama-Tut turned out to be fluent in English, the biggest shock she'd received since landing here. She didn't like his attitude -- he was far too interested in ruling over the peoples of Ancient Egypt, and the way he looked at her was chilling -- but she needed his ability to communicate to get by in this world.

And so, against her better judgement, she showed him her mutant powers. Gleaming and golden, she healed a self-inflicted wound, and the way he looked at her got worse.

"Come, my dear. You'll be of great use to me," he purred, drawing her near. "You shall be my Priestess of Healing. Of course, I am worshiped as a god here, because of my superior might and technology, and so you shall be an extension of me."

He had her absolutely pampered -- bathed in fragrant water and dressed in the finest Egyptian cotton, so light it was translucent. She felt like a princess, but she also felt trapped. He wanted her powers to always be switched on in his presence so he could gaze on her in her golden beauty. Creepy.

Well, was she an X-Man or not?

Rapunzel spent the next three months gathering information, both about Rama-Tut's plans and machinations, and about where and when she was, learning Ancient Egyptian so she wouldn't have to rely on him, and working on an escape plan. It wasn't lost on her that she was practically a prisoner here.

But she played it coyly, cozied up to him, and kept her ears open. She played dumb blonde as she needed to, while maintaining her shroud of mystery as to how, exactly her powers worked. He wanted her under his thumb, that much was clear.

And this place and time, the ancient land of Egypt. But not as the history books showed. Not even as the wildest imaginings of Hollywood had ever shown it. This Egypt, Nur had told them, was under the rule of a Pharaoh from a distant land. He lived not in a pyramid or palace, but a gleaming golden dome, guarded by technology beyond even what Kurt had seen in modern times.

Nothing was as it should be, was it? An ancient empire under the thumb of an advanced invader, and the man who would be their enemy... a friend? The X-Men, or what few had arrived here, had aided Nur. In return, he had brought them into the fold of his people, the Sandstormers. Warriors who opposed this strange man, the Pharaoh Rama-Tut.

This alliance had left all uneasy... Though Nur was not yet the diabolical creature they would come to know, it was hard to forget the atrocities he would commit in time... Magneto, alone, seemed to wish to embrace the first mutant fully.

Kurt... Kurt was conflicted. He did not wish to condemn a man for crimes he had not yet committed. Could he not possibly be guided to a better path at this stage? But the Professor and Beast were wary of altering the timelines too much, and Kurt could see the wisdom in this.

All they could do, then, was wait. While in league with the Sandstormers, Xavier urged his X-Men not to directly engage in their battles, instead holding back, watching, waiting to collect the fallen androids and weapons of the Pharaoh's forces. So it was this day, when Nur and his men rode into their boldest battle yet. A siege on Rama-Tut's own kingdom.

"Don't seem right," Rogue mused from their distant vantage point, a dune some distance from the gate. "Just standin' here, waitin' to pick the battlefield clean while them fellas go in to fight. Feelin' like a buzzard out here..."

Well I'm fighting some weird mood drop feelings outta nowhere but I'm gonna fight em hard to be around today.

Anybody here wanna write with my marvel muses?

❌ We gotta get back... to the 90s! ❌

Indie Multimuse RP blog with over ten years writing experience Featuring X-Men '97's Nightcrawler and Wolverine