Shattered Gem
Bishop stood motionless in his high-tech room, the holographic display flickering with the grim confirmation, Emma Frost was dead. The White Queen, one of the most formidable minds and forces in the mutant world, had fallen. Bishop's jaw tightened, his dark eyes narrowing as he absorbed the information like a soldier cataloging another scar on a battlefield that never seemed to end.
She'd once been a villain..a threat. But she'd evolved, hadn't she? From Hellfire schemer to reluctant hero, pushing the X-Men toward survival with that cold, calculating precision he grudgingly respected. Mutantkind has just lost one of their best defenders.
A flicker of something close to regret stirred in his chest. If I'd been there...but if was a luxury Bishop couldn't afford. Time didn't bend for hypotheticals. Emma's death was another fracture in the present, one that could ripple into the dystopias he'd sworn to prevent. She would have appreciated the irony..the woman who read minds reduced to a ghost in the machine, her absence a silence louder than any psychic scream.
He turned from the hologram, fists clenching at his sides. He'd honor her by ensuring whatever killed her didn't claim the rest of them. In the end, that was all any of them could do. Keep moving. Keep fighting.