DISCLAIMER: All Marvel characters belong to Marvel and are used without
permission.  I am making no money, and have none to begin with, so
please don't sue.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: What if Magneto had always remained relatively sane? 
What if he had decided to employ some of Xavier's methods in achieving
his goal, namely the recruitment of children?  What if he had succeeded?

And if Iceman doesn't sound quite like himself, keep in mind that he's
narrating it as a forty-two year old man and has been exposed to Magneto
for more than half his life :)

I was going through some old files and came across this(which was
written after watching way, way too much 'I, Claudius'), and decided to
post what was already written.  I'm really not sure if I'm going to
finish it though...so let me know what you think.
**********************************


Fire And Ice

How long have I been sitting here, holding her body in my arms?  How
long has her blood run down over me, staining me, marking me, both
inside and out?  

Her eyes are shocked and disbelieving, frozen in death.  She hadn't
thought me capable of such a thing until the moment my blade pierced her
heart.  My expression must mirror hers, and I take my blood soaked hand
and run it lightly over her lids, closing them as a last gesture of
respect for what we once shared.  My fingers leave wet trails of crimson
across her pale skin, and I turn away completely, not wanting to see.

I had never taken a life before this night.  The feeling sickens me to
the core.  

When had things changed between us?  When had we changed so much as
people?  We weren't always like this.

************************************

Twenty-five years ago

"Robert Drake?"

"Yeah?"  Only half awake, I rolled over on my cot and looked up,
expecting to see another officer, or maybe the lawyer they said they'd
appoint me.

Instead, I found myself looking at an angel.

She was dressed all in white, her eyes a perfect emerald green flecked
with gold, her hair like a river of flame.  She seemed to me to glow
from inside with an inner fire that bathed her in its warmth and light
and illuminated the outer beauty.

As I watched, speechless, the door to my cell opened by itself and she
came and stood over me, reaching out and lightly brushing her hand
across my face, feeling the bruises.

"It's terrible," she whispered sadly.  "Grown men beating a child."

"I'm not a child," I responded hotly, the spell broken.  "I'm
seventeen."

"You were a child to those men, and that didn't stop them."

"They thought I was a danger to their own kids."

"Were you?"

"No, of course not."

"Why did they think you were a danger, Robert?" 

I hesitated, not sure if I should tell her my secret.  She probably
already knew, and didn't seem so normal herself; but I had never told
anyone voluntarily before.  "I -- I'm a mutant," I admitted, deciding
that her reaction couldn't be worse than the mob's.  "I was in a fist
fight with a guy from school and used my powers."

"Did you hurt him more with your powers than you would have with your
fists?" she asked.

"No," I laughed.  "I threw a snowball at him."

Her serious expression didn't change; but the corner of her mouth
twitched slightly, as though she were trying to keep from smiling.  "Are
mobs formed regularly to discourage unseasonal snowball throwing?"

"This is the first I've seen.  I'm pretty sure the difference was that
the snowball came out of my hand and not the freezer."

"So they beat you simply because you were different," she said, shaking
her head to convey her disappointment with humanity in general.  "They
didn't judge you as a person, they singled you out because you were a
mutant; and that makes them no different than any other breed of
racist."

"I'm not so sure about that," I replied uncomfortably.  "I'm not making
excuses for them; but they were afraid I might hurt them in the future."

"Don't you see?  That doesn't matter.  If you weren't harming them then,
you weren't a danger.  They didn't need to be protected from you, they
just wanted to teach you a lesson.  Because you were a mutant.  The
worst thing," she told me, "is that most mutants are sitting back and
allowing this to happen.  They won't do anything until it's too late."

"Too late for what?  What do you think is going to happen?"

"If things continue the way they are, a holocaust.  Only this time, it
will be the mutants who are herded into the gas chambers, instead of the
Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, Blacks, and homosexuals.  This time the world
will not rally to the side of the oppressed and massacred, even as an
afterthought.  They will regard it no differently than they would the
wholesale slaughter of animals, and will do nothing to stop it."

I gave a short laugh.  "You're being paranoid," I told her.  She looked
amused.  "It's 1973.  We're in America.  Stuff like that can't - and
won't - happen."

"Are you sure?"

I thought about what had happened the night before - the fight, the
insults, the police officer who had seen what was happening and hadn't
stepped in, the crowd of bystanders that had cheered the men on, the
fact that of all the people who had been taken in to the station, I was
the only one who hadn't been released.  I suddenly realized I wasn't
sure, and the thought was horrifying.

"It has already begun," she continued.  "A bill has been introduced in
congress that would force us to register as mutants.  If they succeed in
that, what will stop them from making us wear their brand of yellow
stars?  Telling us where we will live?  What jobs we can have?  Killing
us?"

"Us?" I asked, surprised, although her appearance and rhetoric made it
pretty clear.

"I am a mutant also," she confirmed, "and I am proud of it.  I am proud
of my people.  I'm not going to stand still and allow them to be blamed
for society's ills, segregated, and murdered.  I'm going to prevent such
a holocaust from occuring; and you are going to help me."

"I am?"  I found myself agreeing with what she was saying, and
frightened by her zealousness at the same time.  She seemed to be a 'by
any means necessary' type, and I wasn't at all sure I wanted to get
mixed up in something like that.  

"Robert," she replied, "you are a good person.  You would hate yourself
if you sat on the sidelines as your people were systematically wiped
out.  Now is the time for action, for involvement.  Do you want to wait
until they come for you and your family before you speak out against the
injustice?"

"No," I said, "I don't."

And with those words, my world changed.

***************************

That night, after we had somehow managed to walk out the front door of
the police station, unnoticed, she took me to meet Magneto.  

She told me that I should feel honored, since I had been handpicked by
the man to join his cause.  She said she had also been chosen, and I
could hear the pride in her voice.  I wondered what was so special about
the guy, to invoke such fervent loyalty and praise.  I soon discovered
the answer.

Magneto was a truly great man, I knew that immediately.  His presence
was tangible, his power immense, his intelligence unmatched.  I had
never met his equal.  I still have not.  I sat in awed silence for hours
as he spoke in detail about what Jean had told me, and when he was
finished, he had imparted to me the same enthusiasm that possessed her.
We were going to remake the world.  We were going to end hunger, war,
predjudice, poverty, even sickness.  We were going to make a difference.

********************************

I stand, her body slipping off my lap and onto the floor.  Now that the
initial horror of what I have done has passed, I can't push out of my
mind the reasons why I did it.  I want nothing to do with her.

We were children back then, unaware that we were part of something
bigger, not fully understanding what we were doing.  I wish we had never
become completely aware.  I don't care if it meant we would have been
sheltered and ignorant. Comprehension can cast a shadow over youthful,
idealistic exuberance.  It can give you an ulterior motive.