<div class="floatleft">(http://d1vr6n66ssr06c.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/DN_ANXM3-2.jpg)</div><hr/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: andale mono;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Name:</strong> Scott Summers<br/>      <strong>Title:</strong> Cyclops<br/>      <strong>Affiliation:</strong> Resistance<br/>      <strong>Location:</strong> Westchester, New York<br/>      <strong>Tags:</strong> Emma Frost </span></span><br/><br/><br/><hr/><br/><span class="bbc_u"><strong>Then:</strong></span><br/><br/>Scott was dressed in sweats and a simple t-shirt, his pace simple and not too strained as he run along the forest path.  He'd originally meant to only go for about 2 km, but it had turned into ten at this point.  He was trying to clear his head, to get out of the thoughts of all the things going on in his brain.  Just concentrate on the run, keep your breath steady, keep arms moving in time with legs...Just the run.  It wasn't anything specific that had gotten him into this mood, his morning with Emma had been fine, he telling her he'd be out and that the school was in her care for the day.  It wasn't even that he needed to say that, she always had everything under control, always had things in perfect order.  Scott had tried to do that with some many things, keep so many people safe.  And in that time he had made some enemies, a good portion close friends.  It wasn't that he ever did this on purpose just-<br/><br/>Scott felt the explosion before he heard it.  He flying through the air, a part of him telling to be ready to bounce up for a fight after impact.  The other part told him simply, you'll be lucky if your even alive.  His left arm and shoulder were the first things to make contact, the snap his bones rather than the tree.  Which seemed perfectly fine until it was hit by what he would later learn was part of the mansion.  As it fell towards him, Scott barely grunted against the pain and reached up with his good hand and removed is glasses, the optic beam that his God given gift blasted the massive pieces of wood to pieces.  Unfortunately, one of those pieces came hurling towards his head, and the leader of the X-men was in no position to get out of the way<br/><br/><div align="center">***</div><br/>Scott awoke after nightfall, his hand reaching for his glasses, long ago it had become instinct for him to search for lens and not open his eyes on waking.  He found the durable and near indestructible tool, and couldn't help but notice it was entirely destroyed.  Tree falling on it will do that.  "Fuck..."  He swore, reaching around him still.  Shattered arm, broken shoulder, and blind to boot, great.  It took some time but Scott was able to feel around enough to get a very, very vague idea of hat surrounded him.  The short end of it was, a lot of tree's and rubble.  He wasn't entirely crushed but there was a good amount of weight above him, his space was very confined and it was a place he needed to get out of.  He only knew of one way and that was well, risky.  Still he had no other choice, and with some resignation Scott open his eyes and blasted the rubble from around him, he noticing the stars and doing his best to remember which way was north, not that without finding the mansion first would that help much.<br/><br/>The blast worked, he got up from the rubble with closed eyes and immediately knew which way to go, and it near made his heart stop.  That smell, that horrible damned smell.  All he had to do was go towards that smell and he knew he would find the mansion, or at least what was left of it.  As he got closer the stench became worse, the man fighting back tears as he got closer and closer, eyes sealed shut as each step more and more confirmed what he knew now to be true.<br/><br/>He had a broken tree limb for a walking stick; this wasn't his first time having to deal with blindness and do to his natural skills of area surveillance he moved around better than most.  Still, it was his sense of smell he followed, and it lead him to exactly what he expected.  Scott spent hours fumbling around the ruins, listening, feeling, searching for anyone that might be alive.  There were none, nothing but dead bodies and rubble...Some of which he could tell belonged to a certain person, or could be anyone one.  He felt back tears and pouts of anger the entire time...Goddammit!  Finally the X-men broke down and hollered.  He didn't care if the enemy heard him, he didn't care if he was struck down.  His eyes opened and with his unconstrained optic blast destroying everything before him he quickly found his way to the road leading from the mansion.  It was not like he made the place any worse after all.<br/><br/>Getting to the road proper Scott came to care less and less of opening his eyes.  His beams bursting forward every few minutes to clear the road or just allow him to make sure he was heading in the right direction.  Not that it was that hard to follow a road while blind and with a walking stick, but the truth of the matter was that Scott was itching for a fight.  He wanted enemy upon enemy to come upon him and he would kill them all.  His beams would be withheld in no fashion and he would kill dozens, hundreds of his foes!  There was a small list of villains that were capable of doing what had been done to the school, and even then Scott wasn't sure it could be any of them.  The X-men may be hated, but the ones who could have done this didn't want them all dead.  Not, if anything to Scott this reeked of a military operation.  It was cold, effective and without mercy.  Children had been murdered!  It stank so much of government action that Scott thought himself to vomit once more.<br/><br/>That theory became clouded however as he came into Westchester a little after dawn.  Why had it been destroyed as well?  Had the town been scene as mutant sympathizers and that was that.  All mutant presence and support was to be wiped from the country?  Goddammit what was going on?!  Scott opened his eyes once more and looked towards the coast, and what he saw only made even more questions burn through his mind.  New York was aflame.  The entire city seemed to be burning in the distance.<br/><br/>He had to get to the safe house.  There was a pair of lens there for him for one, and even if all satellite communication was taken out, the short wave would still be working and that should give him something at least.  Though tired, beaten, and mentally exhausted Scott began to pick up his pass.  He moved with more care however, his mind shifting from wanting to die in combat here and now, to getting to the safe house and hurting this enemy in a place he knew it would hurt.  When he did open his eyes it was in the tiniest on squints.  An awkward action to perform, but one he would have too do frequently to get to the safe house.  He knew the mile marker he had to get too, but after that it was a difficult trek in the woods.  Even with all his skills, it would not be easy to get there on his own.<br/><br/>It was not much later that Scott heard a dark barking.  Of course he wasn't the only living thing, bit foolish to have thought that actually.  He didn't open his eyes because the animal seemed to be on the road with him, he didn't want to blast the thing, even slightly.  It was then he heard the crying.  A person!  A woman!  Or trap, or a threat?  Scott couldn't risk it being the latter, and with a tilt of his head and the briefest of opening he saw threw his peripheral vision something he knew could not be true.<br/><br/>"Emma..." Scott stopped, his good arm reaching out, face contorted in a pain that begged God for this to not be a trick.  Don't be a lie, don't be a lie.  "EMMA!" He yelled, his voice cracking as the tears fully broke from his eyes and he reached out to where he had scene her.  His shirt and sweats were torn, his arm busted to all hell, and his face was covered in scratches and body smeared with small amounts of blood.  If this was an illusion, if this was some trick by some being (as Scott knew it could be), he would not live through it.  He would not be able to get back up.  If this truly was not Emma Frost, he would not live to fight another day.