The city lights were beautiful.

He stood on the edge of the building, not feeling the cold...only feeling the wind that whipped through his hair and fluttered his silk shirt flat against his lean frame.

New York City sparkled beneath him, twinkling like Christmas lights in colors he hadn't seen since he was fifteen. In a few hours, his kind would scurry off to their dark corners like roaches, but he'd stay and watch the sunrise.

There was a certain irony in this.

It took Changing for him to appreciate the colors and beauty of a sunrise.

He ran the tip of his tongue over the sharp points of his receded fangs, savoring the shiver of it.

How long had it been?

Five years?

Not long enough to remember what it felt like to be trapped in dying flesh. Not long enough to forget her.

He'd come for her, but she'd fled with the others. What was left of them. Most had been brought over, or killed outright, it was better that way. A kindness. He disliked the term "pets" but it was a pampered, elite existence for those born superior.

And this was just the next step in that evolution.

He'd find her.

She was above all of them, even the other mutants, and not just because he remembered her taste, the feel of her silken skin sweat beneath him, and the shadow of that hormonal imbalance that the cattle call 'love'.

No, she was important to all of them.

And one other, but he'd let Bobby deal with him.

Fucking teleporters.

Telekinetics were not exactly a walk in the park to deal with, as Drake so helpfully pointed out.

But Eric was working on something, something that would tame that little inconvenience. Jean and Kurt had proved immune to all the usual 'gentling' of powers until they could be brought over, or introduced into Society as Companions.

Sometimes even the genetically superior had problems with their own evolution and had to be trained.

They were calling themselves something different these days, having abandoned the perfectly adorable "Marvel Girl" and rather unfortunate "Nightcrawler" in their misguided quest to be mankind's saviors.

But they'd come around.

The two of them, princes among new nobility -- after they did some cleaning house of the dreck that was fouling up the race after Deacon Frost's fortunate misunderstanding of an old prophecy had released the magic that destroyed both Deacon and Blade.

Deacon was a prick, but his sacrifice was much appreciated.

Who'd have thought that The Blood God was a retro-virus?

And was waterborne.

It had spread over the earth, raining blood. Some were changed by the Blood Rain, some by the frenzy that swept through the vampire race.

Bobby was the first to change...to evolve, as the plague raged across the globe.

And then it was over.

But it had just begun.

They had a Revolution.

And now the homo-inferior race was the one that lived in fear. But the Kindred were kind shepherds to their flocks, and the world knew an order and peace it hadn't ever experienced. It was Utopia.

Look, the city thrived. The cattle were content. No one suffered. Crime was practically unheard of among the humans. And disease and pain was brought to a merciful end...no lingering on machines waiting for release into the arms of a god that very few thought of anymore.

There were new Gods now.

Well, two, at least. He didn't know why the old writings implied that it was Jean and Kurt, but Ramsey had insisted that his translations were the correct ones. For reasons still unknown, Jean Grey and Kurt Wagner were to join himself and Bobby as leaders among this new race.

It was an incomplete pantheon.

But once the missing two were brought over, the world would know true Peace and Order.

He worried that his hard won gift for Eric would delay the man's work, but he'd never been good at waiting on giving presents. And Rogue's condition would prove an interesting puzzle to Magneto, how to Bring Over someone with her particular powers.

And the man had shown more than an academic interest in their little Mississippi mud-rat.

Too bad that the Cajun had slipped away, though his infamous nonchalance had been broken when they'd taken Rogue, reports said that he'd screamed her name before killing several good soldiers. But Scott wasn't angry at Remy. Gambit just didn't understand yet, but he would.

Very soon.

Ororo had set out herself to claim her Arcadian prize...hopefully before the thief could make it back to wherever their little band of Merry Mutants had holed up...last he heard it was under the protection of the Were. Shame that. He almost missed Hank, but his bitch girlfriend's invoking of old tribal magicks had caused a sudden population explosion among the Were. Dani Moonstar needed to be put down like a feral dog. What a brilliant man like Hank saw in her, he'd never know. And he'd never forgive her for what her magic fumblings did to someone who was once one of his closest friends.

"Scott!"

Raising an eyebrow, Scott Summers turned around.

"Kitty." He said warmly, stepping down from the ledge and laying a cool hand to her bruised cheek. She struggled -- crying with anger and perhaps a little fear -- held between two vampire soldiers, the nanites already working their little miracle on her powers. He frowned at her bruises. "Who did this?"

"Sir, we had to use reasonable force to subdue her, even after Mr. Drake forced her solid, she was armed." The soldier who gripped Kitty left arm gestured toward his healing wound that look like a sword thrust.

Bobby. He probably wandered by, waggled his fingers to unphase Shadowcat, and then went on his merry way without so much as a backward glance.

"So you beat her up, marked her face? A noble Companion?" Scott leveled his blue eyes at the soldier. "That's completely outside protocol."

Moving faster than Kitty's eyes could track, Scott was behind the soldier, fangs extended and buried in the lesser vampire's throat.

"Oh, god..." Kitty recoiled in horror as the former leader of the X-Men dropped the man, who crumbled into ash before his body could hit the tar of the roof.

"Shh, don't worry." Scott patted her shoulder, licking the single droplet of stray blood from his lip, "We're family. Welcome home, Kitty."