Travelers

__** The Travelers **__



The Travelers are a group of former students from Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. The group formed following the rise of the villain Victorious in a dystopian future. They attempted to return to the past to prevent Victorious from killing all the heroes and reigning as ruler of the world.


 * History **

The Travelers were made up of future versions of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters students Bastienne Noel, Billy Pang, Dane Lightfoot, David Goldberg, Lucius Hayes, Paul Thomas, Samantha Carpenter, and Selena Moreno. These students were classmates at Xavier’s School and, due to an unspecified problem during their senior year, were never able to train in the Danger Room. Following their graduation they parted and lived uneventful lives. None of them ever became X-Men or superheroes.

In the year 2025, an Avenger by the name of Victor Mancha (code name “Victorious”) was revealed to be a supervillain in disguise. Victorious used his control over machines to create a robot army of Doombots, Sentinels, and other machines. He also took control of Danger, the sentient version of the Danger Room. Victorious first sent Danger to eliminate the X-Men while he used his robots to finish off the Avengers. Since Danger had fought the X-Men countless times, it knew all their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Danger killed the X-Men, leaving the Avengers without help when Victorious killed every one of his former teammates. He then killed the remaining superheroes in the world, including the Captain Americas and the Fantastic Fourteen.

The Travelers managed to escape Victorious’ scrutiny as they had never been heroes. One of them – the future version of Billy Pang – came up with a plan. His wife, Ruth, had been a member of the Avengers and he had been unable to save her. He believed that the future could be changed if the X-Men hadn’t been defeated. The X-Men would have helped the Avengers stop Victorious to prevent his reign of terror. Billy’s plan involved going back in time to influence a new team of X-Men – one that had never been inside the Danger Room. This team would not be vulnerable to Danger’s knowledge of their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Once this new team defeated Danger, they could assist the Avengers and stop Victorious.

Billy decided to go back in time with his classmates that had survived Victorious’ purge of the superheroes. These classmates had never been in the Danger Room and could defeat Danger. He joined with Bastienne Noel, Dane Lightfoot, David Goldberg, Lucius Hayes, Paul Thomas, Samantha Carpenter, and Selena Moreno and convinced them of his plan. They called themselves The Travelers. He then used his power of time control to take everyone back in time to their senior year at Xavier’s school. At that time the X-Men were off-world on a mission and only a few teachers (Angel and Nightcrawler) remained. This was the perfect time for the Travelers to launch their plan.

The Travelers clad themselves in black clothing and used their knowledge of the school’s security system to break into the mansion’s grounds. Billy used his time abilities to blast Angel and Nightcrawler into a “time coma,” effectively removing them from the time stream and leaving them in a comatose state. Paul, with his ability to copy another mutant’s powers, also assisted. The other Travelers held the students back as Billy and Paul then blasted all the seniors except the younger versions of the Travelers. This would leave their younger versions in control of the school and would force them to step up to become the new X-Men. Unfortunately, in the chaos of the attack, the younger versions of Paul and Selena were put into temporal comas as well.

Before leaving, the Travelers used Lucius’ illusion abilities to make it seem they were stealing Jean Grey’s coffin. This would serve as a red herring to disguise why The Travelers truly attacked. The Travelers then retreated from the school and found a hideout in the Morlock tunnels nearby. They befriended the Morlocks and bided their time. Soon they sent challenges at the seniors to mold them into heroes – Dane fixed an old Sentinel that had attacked the school and sent it at a nearby mall. Samantha located a nest of Brood and mentally forced them to attack the school. Lucius created an illusion of Bobby Drake that dubbed the seniors the “New X-Men.” The plan was working flawlessly.

Some old enemies emerged to ruin everything, however. The Brotherhood of Mutants, led by Mystique, took advantage of the absence of adult X-Men at the X-Mansion to get access to Cerebro. Mystique was searching for the missing Magneto. She infiltrated the school and used an underclassman with psychic abilities to power the machine. She was caught before she could find Magneto, however, and escaped. When she was followed by the seniors, the Brotherhood of Mutants (Mystique, Crucible, The Blob, Toad, Avalanche, and Sabretooth) ambushed the group. The seniors were nearly able to fight them off, but The Blob proved unstoppable and the seniors retreated.

The Travelers stepped in to remove the Brotherhood before they could foil their plans further. However, on the same night that the Travelers incapacitated the Brotherhood, one of the seniors caught a glimpse of future Lucius. Meanwhile, a student at the school accidentally re-activated the backup of the Danger Room and released another version of Danger! With their plans falling apart, the Travelers regrouped in the Morlock tunnels. But even there they were not safe, as the seniors used Cerebro to locate the Travelers. The seniors arrived to confront the Travelers and even the entire colony of Morlocks couldn’t stop them. Soon the seniors saw the truth – their enemies were actually future versions of themselves!

The future version of Billy knew the original plan was over, but he had a backup plan. If the Travelers couldn’t mold their past selves into the heroes that could stop Danger, then their past selves would have to fight Danger immediately. He used his time powers to transport the seniors into the future to the day Danger killed the X-Men.

The seniors were transported to a scene of carnage and death. They saw the X-Mansion in shambles. They saw the charred remains of Professor X, Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Beast, Angel, Rogue, Gambit, and Colossus. They also saw the dead bodies of the new team, including Armor (team leader), Jubilee, Shadowcat, X-23, Chamber, Blindfold, a woman named Molly and others they didn’t know. The seniors also learned that even the Brotherhood, led by Magneto, was killed! As the seniors surveyed the horror of this dark future, a patrol of Victorious’ Doombots attacked!

Following the defeat of the Doombots, the future version of Billy knew Victorious would arrive soon. He transported the seniors back in time to moments before Danger arrived to kill the X-Men. The seniors quickly came up with a plan. They created an EMP device and set it off as Danger appeared. Even this was not enough to stop her. She realized that she’d never faced the seniors before. In her advanced liquid metal form, she split into copies of the X-Men and fought the seniors. After a hard-pressed battle, the seniors won, and the future was saved. The X-Men survived to assist the Avengers and Victorious was defeated. Future Billy began fading as the time stream had been changed and soon he wouldn’t exist. Before he was gone completely he transported the seniors back to their own time. They returned to find that their teachers – as well as their fellow students, the Brotherhood of Mutants, and everyone else affected by Billy’s time powers – had awoken. Shortly after the seniors came back to their time, the X-Men returned from their off-world mission and proclaimed the seniors graduated. Their future changed, the Travelers were no more.