Writer: Rowland Wells

Disclaimer:  I am in no way any part of Marvel Comics or any affiliation of their enterprise.  I do not own the X-Men or any Marvel Characters. 

Alternate

X-Men

#18

"assassins, cons and rapists"

Many people had been prepared to accept a mutant society when the concept came into public knowledge.  Everybody was aware of freaks among a culture; people who dressed differently, people with abnormalities and physically debilitating diseases, and especially people with different skin colour to that of the majority.  Just because those standouts were apparent, it didn't mean that all and sundry had to endure their presence.  Brought over from Africa via the prospering slave trade, and welcomed into simple servitude, people with darker skin colour than that of their masters were regarded as worthless; mere commodities to be exchanged for money and time.  At that era in the world's naivety, it was considered perfectly customary to treat blacks as though they had no value, no respect and no thoughts or perspectives.  Only when the people among the white masses decided to listen, just to exercise their constitutional or legally asserted rights, did they realise their mistakes and atrocities on an unwanted nation.  Everyone was aware of the Holocaust only decades before, and the crusades and assorted religious wars all brought about through abhorrence of diversity, yet still the majority preferred to accept the current state of affairs as though it were acceptable.  The people who listened to speakers such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Mohandas Ghandi and the Dalai Lama all learnt from their past regressions.  Equal Rights bills were passed; people were allowed to visit schools, churches and even military barracks that previously a bigoted set of nations had disallowed access to, strictly through the nature of divergence.  This only occurred through the acceptance of not only the minority themselves, but the small portion of the majority whose sympathy paved the way for an equivalent and fulfilled world. 

Following the dissolution of their unreasonable and tenuous chauvinisms, the bigoted population of many of the integrated countries receded into non-existence, and by the late nineteenth century, had utterly dissolved.  Only in the darkest of obscure pockets in several developed countries could the prejudices still be discovered, held strong by die-hard fanatics who may not have asserted their opinions, but supported them with baseless precision nonetheless.  Limited skirmishes in the middle-eastern countries, among other sections of the globe where affluent orders groped at a peoples' faith, dominated much of the racism that still existed toward the beginning of the twentieth century.  Only through pre-nuclear conflict could these nations settle disputes over land and philosophies, and it seemed truly pathetic of humankind that in five thousand years of civilisation and hostilities that the epicentre of the entire race's problems still lay in the same site, under discussion backed with armaments ready to purge the Earth of its plagued populous two hundred and fifty million times over. 

And just as the varying peoples were put under the scrutiny of the whole world mere decades and millennia before, so to were mutants.  They arrived through the evolution of a species – the Homo Sapiens – which was not governed by the omnipotent supremacy and acumen of a god, but by the Spartan human mind and body, ready to advance through the limited stages of a mindless parasite into a blossoming superior being.  Many were unprepared for the insurgence of a new race upon which stress and strife would be heaped by the select and governed masses, but unlike the African descendants shipped over to the new world in previous years, this generation of enlightened humankind could stomach the hard pill of Homo Sapiens Superior. 

The only difficulty those mutants involved encountered though, was the refusal to accept their presence under public analysis.

                                                *        *        *

With the swift and unexpected exit of Charles Xavier, the builders set to reconstruct the remains of the Mansion were no longer under his litigious control.  Already, he had managed to telepathically convince the Salem Center community that the estate was a giant collective for Jehovah's Witnesses, and since the workers had arrived to take care of the mess after Weapon X's raid, Charles had reinforced the suggestion on them.  It had worked for the most part effectively, but now he was too far out of range to even maintain a tenuous grasp on their weak minds.  Luckily, every student attending the grounds had departed after Magneto's rebirth and subsequent skirmish in the main halls, so the threat of suspicion and racist violence from the workers was limited to non-threatening astonishment.  As soon as they arrived at eight o'clock in the morning, the Mansion's broken entrance greeted their uninfluenced gazes.  The lobby was completely wrecked, and part of the repaired roof had been blown apart due to Magneto's harsh departure.  Newly pasted wallpaper was burnt off, walls had been severely dented, or in the case of Xavier's office, utterly demolished.  Bullet holes lay in the woodwork, while both banisters on the main staircase were shattered.  Evidence of blood and flesh wounds was littered along the plush carpet, stained grey with trampled dirt and grass.  Giving each other looks of perplexing and horrified wonder, the numerous builders progressed further into the archaic building's depths to find set futuristic pieces dotted underneath the ground floors.  The war room, which seemed to them untouched [even though they had been the ones to rebuild it], was buzzing with excitement, and everywhere, monitoring stations popped up through hidden wall compartments or in dislocated offices.  Thankfully, they had no encounter with the one student who had remained despite her fellows taking a leave of absence from the Mansion.  Betsy stayed sleeping the entire time they wandered over the grounds, thankfully never waking to chance upon their prying and anxious eyes.  It would have been one fight that she could not have one.  Almost an army of construction workers were enlisted to aid in the Mansion's decoration, and Betsy would've had no time to fend off such a legion.  Instead, they bypassed the medical ward, and finally regrouped on the front steps of the lobby exterior.  Stupefied glances to one another eventually beggared the simple question: what was happening here?

After much discussion and a final check over the estate to ensure the residents were absent, the builders concluded that it must be a mutant terrorist training facility, located in one of the most unlikely places in New York.  Some of the group examined the equipment, the documents and secret places hidden in the dated interior exhaustively before coming to that conclusion, but as inconceivable as it all seemed, they had no choice but to accept the blatant truth. 

Being a part of his fortuitously-gained company for a day, the relatively young and ambitious Graydon Creed decided to be present for his current client, Charles Xavier and his decaying family Mansion grounds.  He was here to discuss the funding which the client's assistant Tessa Niles had not been able to do.  Interestingly though, Graydon and his employees stumbled upon the element of the Mansion which Charles had tried so hard to conceal.  It was with good reason, as Charles was unaware of Graydon Creed's lucrative financial power and his bigoted deportment on the mutant population existing on North American soil.  If he had known of the true nature of his workers' employment earlier, then the operation would have ceased to be immediately.  Fanatical to the point of extreme violence in his prejudices and right-wing hatred propaganda, Graydon Creed secretly formed and led a faction of anti-mutant activists known to the world at large as the Friends of Humanity.  He had two identities in his warped and bitter life; one existing as an economic and media-exposed mogul, overseeing a large construction corporation and various entrepreneur realms, and the other as the narrow-minded, prominent tyrant directing a malevolent, fear-fuelled incarnation of a giant lynch-mob dedicated to ruining mutant lives.  Many times, he had seen the two aspects as interchangeable: great potential over less fortunate circumstances seemed to be his forte. 

His initial and pleasant emergence was at once diluted with the establishment of the facilities within the Mansion grounds.  Arriving to talk about the nature of the funding with Xavier was substituted with the immediate loathing and revulsion at such a colony of vermin infesting the nearby serene landscapes of New York's suburban counties.  Creed was outright appalled that such a place even existed, let alone in the heart of North America.  During his reign at the head of his private mob, he had encountered many a secluded nest of mutants, hiding from persecution, and had done his best to swiftly and effectively obliterate them, without the alerting of any authorities.  In Graydon's previous experience, it was more appropriate to act without the aid of any supervision save his own, and dispatch unwanted mutants like vigilantes; with stealth and storm.  Furious to such a degree, he mounted the stage-like steps outside the lobby and held an audience among his cronies and workmen.  Some were a part of his higher cause, and others felt no such attachment unless a wave of warm nausea threatened to overtake them. 

'My comrades,' he addressed the crowd in a pinstripe suit and immaculate haircut 'before you, stands a testament to mutant resilience – a convent for the specific training of and housing of mutant terrorists; right in the centre of Maine!  How such a monstrosity has occurred, don't ask me, but I'll sure as hell maintain that it will not last in our presence for long…'

Cheers circled the crowding people, several of them gracefully opting out of the hateful propaganda.

'We can only assume that this is the work of the one Charles Xavier – the same man who is our client and employer.  Lest we stamp out his hold on these mutant menaces occupying the very land on which we all dwell, they would surely overrun us!'

Graydon straightened his back, watching the swelling aggression, and allowing a thin, cruel smile to surface on his flawless face. 

'How could we have been so blind?'  He asked them, his rhetoric building in the process.  'We had been bewitched by the devil of the pack that resides here, and now his rose-tinted glasses have been lifted from your heads, you are free to cast judgment on them yourselves.'

A voice called from the quagmire of people, interrogating the leader's forceful comments.  'How do we know they aren't peaceful – the same mutants that saved our President?'

Instead of picking the man out, Graydon addressed his lackey's earnestly, and assured them of the evil intent.  'You all saw why the Sentinels were produced – our old U.S leader, Oval U.N Baxteridge was assassinated before the gathered peoples of Dallas!  The current President, the fool that he is, thought he might trust the lesser of two evils – the mutants that prevented Magneto's struggle for domination still ended up demolishing half of Washington City!  How can anyone justify their place in our developed and civilised society?  Mutants are vermin, and therefore are in line for extermination!'  He projected his open hand across the expanse of the Mansion's great walls and shouted.  'As such, we will destroy this hole in the ground for all it is worth!'

Despite the irrationality of the situation, Graydon Creed's motives seemed all too reasonable.  Many of his followers were ready to rally to his cause and validate the resulting punishment.  It was an all too human reaction, which several of them might have been excused for, if ever put on trial.

                                                *        *        *

An idyllic new morning graced the horizon just above the ring of active volcanoes circling the Savage land.  The sun beamed out its welcoming radiance at the resurrection of the contained world's master Magneto, and his reinstated place at the top of his proud fortress Avalon.  Not a cloud in the sky, the blue canvas hailed the greeting as well, letting the prehistoric birds and new-age flyers adorn the high air alike in unmindful joviality.  Such a sight met with Cortez's gaze on most dawns, but this was the only one different since his charge as head of Magneto's followers.  He had relinquished control over the throne, glad to embrace the majesty of his and the Acolytes' initial master.  The cornered world had altered since its governor abandoned it many weeks ago, changing into more of a hidden community of private societies instead of a warring nation.  Cortez had decided to maintain the sanctity of the land until it could once again rise in might and unleash the pent-up fury holed up behind secluded walls. 

Obsessed with his superiority over the human powers of the globe, Cortez arranged for Magneto's return almost as soon as they realised Xavier had consumed his mind.  The faded memories were relatively easy to emerge using Fabian's own mutant ability to heal and manipulate matter on a molecular basis.  He also possessed the power to catalyse latent abilities somewhat, and utilised this to bring about the recall in the old man's mind.  What neither Magneto, nor any other Acolyte knew though, was that Cortez had reshaped the deconstructed memories present at the back of his master's head, and moulded them into something more than they actually were.  Although he wasn't quite sure what his lord fully remembered, and what still lay beyond reach, Magneto now had access to only some selected memories of his downfall, others notwithstanding.  It was exactly what he had intended to happen, and Cortez was pleased that his previous mentor had once again turned to being a despot on a nuclear scale, able to topple governments with a single wave of his vengeful hand.  Due to the effect, the master of magnetism now blamed his previous destruction entirely on Charles Xavier, and the "unprovoked" Sentinel contingency, guided by the malicious and intentionally racist North American presidency.

The integration into Avalon and its following masses had been rapid and straightforward, just as the fanatical Acolytes assumed, but Cortez was always at the side of his lord, ready to manipulate the information and facts, purely for his own benefit.  He resumed his position of the sycophantic lap-dog, but without the need to hang on every word, simply taking time to plot instead.  Using his ingenuity and subtle cunning, Fabian Cortez had inadvertently become the puppet master of possibly the most inconceivable dominance lurking angrily on Earth at the moment.  He took great pride in that.  Further to his total and distanced direction of Magneto, Cortez would eventually wage his eternal feud against humankind in an effort to supplant them as the dominant species on the planet.  The Acolytes had gained all the nuclear supremacy they required for such a hostile takeover, and now the simple lust for vengeance on the side of these "sympathetic" governments would be just enough to drive the populous of the Savage land over the edge.  Lashing out with the wrath of a billion snowballed injustices, they would bring the world's human leaders to their knees, only to erect a new leader among the debris.  One who could assume the rightful role, and govern their new entourage with an iron fist and an even sturdier metal determination.

Choosing to abandon his wishful, iniquitous power games until a later time, where he might indulge himself alone, Cortez walked through the halls of Avalon to arrive in Magneto's throne room.  He swished the short ponytail lock of fair hair behind his head and breezed in under the great stone archway holding the ceiling high above their heads.  He bowed, hiding the contempt he felt for the unjustified action, and straightened to greet his master's pained gaze.  Magneto sat in his regal, minimalist, marble chair, with black eyes hung heavy under his previous strain.  He had come straight to the main room after his untimely tussle with Sabretooth and the X-Men students, but the wounds bleeding over a dull grey robe told Cortez of his dismay at the encounter.  'I am hurt, Acolyte.'  He stated, groping at the gashes.  'Of course, my lord – you must suffer stress for your noble actions, it is just the way people will react to you venting your dignity among them.  They are lesser beings, and I cannot help but feel pity for them in their ignorance.'  Cortez approached his lord, knelt, and unclasped his gloves.  His hands vibrated with a strange glow, and he cast the palms above the wounds. 

The blistering ache surged into Magneto's being, and he tried to suppress a loud growl of intensifying pain.  The lesions corroded, and skin crackled and peeled under the Acolytes healing touch.  Blood set and then faded into dull marks on unblemished skin.  Magneto watched, fascinated, as the ache deadened his crying limbs, and he grasped hold of the set-in-stone chair armrests.  'Let my hands heal you, my lord, as they did my sister a long time ago.'  He circled the fingertips carefully, lovingly, but in reality, he only felt false admiration.  Whatever his master sensed of his followers, Cortez didn't care anymore.  His goal was the simple control of this former mentor in any way possible.  To let him rule the Savage land for a time would be only a mask; Magneto had been given the keys to the kingdom once, and through his overreaching lust for world equality via diplomatic and subsequent terrorism aggression, he had spat on the sanctified earth.  If he were to allow Magneto another chance in creating a perfect world for the two species to occupy, then mutants would never supersede their fragile human oppressors.  Cortez would see humanity crawl at his dominant and uncompromising pedestal, or the entire premise would burn to ashes around him. 

                                                *        *        *

Delgado herded Logan and Charles through the grand hallways of Avalon, keeping his eyes locked on the Professor's bonds.  He had Charles in his great groping palm, picked off the cell floor by the scruff of the shirt collar, and then slapped a pair of flimsy handcuffs on him.  Even though the Professor was crippled, and dissuaded from utilising his power of the mind due to Magneto's personal resistance, Charles could still use his fists, and might have if Harry hadn't intimidated him so.  Walking in front of the giant Acolyte, Logan had two hefty metal gloves securing both hands uncomfortably behind his back, and he was shoved reluctantly forward several times.  Anne Marie kept him in check with her resolute temper until they reached the throne room where Magneto sat.  Cortez grinned wickedly at the prospect of these two enemies of the state being brought before their new master, whose memory of their betrayal fuelled his wrath at the outside world.  The grand archway loomed high above their heads, and the architecture with which the room was constructed was staggeringly immaculate, considering the intention for such an edifice.  Avalon was Magneto's private power base, secluded and brooding with a magnificent arsenal and an army of fanatics stored within its bowels.  Charles was disgusted by the idea of such a capital.  The sun glared through the huge glass windows in the main hallway, shining onto the prisoner's backs as Logan was forced to kneel, while Charles was simply dropped to the floor.

The lord of the manor rose from his throne, the weight of localised pain lifting from his healed bones.  He stepped down onto the floor, his sandals tapping against the marble while his grey robe slid along the surface.  He approached Logan, whose eyes gleamed furiously up at him.  'You turncoat.'  Magneto stated, an almost indescribable level of revulsion issuing from those few words.  'You are a traitor to mutantkind; a traitor to your fellow comrades, and a traitor to your master.'

Logan stared defiantly.  'I got a better offer,' he nodded to Charles 'from him.'

Magneto grated his teeth, and whisked Logan onto his back with his influence over the metal gloves encasing his hands.  Stepping to Charles while Delgado guarded the other X-Man, Magneto knelt, still with his helmet on.  'You can't touch me.'

'Indeed I can't, Erik, but you will not make me need to.'

'Don't be so arrogant!'  Cortez shouted from the throne.  'You will respect our lord while you are a guest in his house!'

Magneto glanced to his chief Acolyte quickly and then back to the Professor, who he leaned dangerously close to.  Hot breath issued onto his face.  'Before this week is over, Charles, you will become a part of this empire, whether or not you choose to.  Surely by now you must have seen the futility of resistance?  I have no wish for further loss of life, especially that of my oldest and dearest nemesis.'

                                                *        *        *

Staring at Rogue while she sat with Remy in the cold cell, oblivious, Mystique waited outside for her company to arrive.  She played with the bolt on the door, idly sliding it in and out of the housings.  It was rusted over with bronze grit similar to the same compound that was consuming the walls, floors and ceiling of the entire building.  Rainwater had leaked in at every possible nook and cranny in the construction, gradually staining the structure until it resembled the Tower of London's arcane dungeons.  It was an infested rat's nest, located on the outskirts of New York City, near the harbours, but for the time being it was what the shape-shifting mutant called shelter.  Her yellow eyes penetrated the darkness of the cell through the sight gap at the top of the door, and she gazed as both sat trembling in the dripping greyness.  She heard footsteps approaching, and turned to see Sabretooth escorting a cabal of technophiles, eccentric, manic professors and mutant bodyguards through the badly-lit underground halls.  She left the gap open, and stepped out of the way as her associates replaced the view with their eyes.  A towering figure strode behind the others, stopping outside the cell next to the two incarcerated mutants.  His breathing quickened audibly, and he panted with excitement at his future prospects.  Glancing to a scruffy Sabretooth, Mystique stepped hesitantly over to the towering figure.  'To your satisfaction?'  She enquired.

His black eyes span to her, and he gave a devious grin of pleasure.  He then signalled to the group gathering outside Rogue and Remy's cell, and let Sabretooth grapple open the thick iron door.  The scientists fluttered out of the way, each one agitated by the repulsive, claustrophobic atmosphere.  It not only concealed them from the outside world, but cramped their emotions and anxieties, forcing the nervousness to linger like a stench in the dank air.  They backed off to the wall, as Rogue and Remy were struck to their knees.  Sabretooth clasped a clawed paw around each neck, threatening to snap at the first instance. 

The towering figure approached them, his shadowed form shaking and waving for everyone to witness.  His grey, dulled skin tone met their gazes, and a hand shot out for Remy's dirty shirt.  He plucked the Cajun off the puddle-littered floor and held him to his face.  Dead, black eyes met with enlivened crimson-red pupils and he shook Remy with contempt.  'You are my new associate, LeBeau.  They say you are a thief – I shall believe so.'  He spoke with a guttural drawl to his voice, but the accent was one of an educated man; regal, in its own right.  'Non, mon ami – I no villain fo' anyone.'

Dropping Remy into the puddle discourteously, the figure stared straight ahead.  'Somebody shot you, but you are not hurt anymore.'

Remy glared at the obvious red indentation stuck in the centre of the giant man's dull grey forehead.  'Same can't be said 'bout you.'  He replied brashly.

'Your union with The Thieves Guild indicates differently.  Adopted by the great LeBeau family, you are one of its remaining family members, and I realise that you have offered quite the services to such an organisation.  The only question that beggars contemplation now is whether or not you choose to operate solely for my benefit; or should I turn you over to our mutual acquaintances, the Donna family?'  The man looked at his prize, awaiting the obvious answer.  'I shall ensure you steal, maim, rob, cripple and kill for us instead of those pathetic small-town French swamp rats.  Do we have an understanding?'

Rogue glared angrily at the Cajun, before Sabretooth bowed her head again. 

'Do you have something to add, my dear?'  He asked, observing Rogue's reactions.  'Your connection with him,' he indicated to Remy 'is not without its mysteries.  Would you like to have them revealed for all to see?'

Rogue scowled, but Sabretooth batted a fist across her neck and she slumped to the floor.  Remy struggled to his feet, but the man rested his large hand around his neck in a rather bizarre yet paternal manner.  'You care for her, I can see.  Do as I ask, or I shall positively terminate the young girl's life.'

'Screw ya!'  Remy yelled, grating his jaw for the sinister figure to see.

'Now now,' the man responded spitefully, stroking the Cajun's neck with a cold palm 'is that any way to speak to your new and only ally?'

                                                *        *        *

Magneto tightened his hold on Charles's body, suspended in the air through his metallic cuffs.  He was quickly losing patience with the Professor's refusal to accept the current state of affairs within the Savage land domain.  Fingers clenched close to a fist, and his power ebbed and flowed through his veins.  'Don't argue with me!'  He shouted, bringing the man to the marbled floor again.  'Your presence here is a plague; I should have foreseen such a disaster!' 

Charles gurgled out a cough as he hit the stone, and crumpled.  His battle of intellectual justification for Magneto's warring intentions was swinging his way, and even though the man was rapidly losing his temper, it would only cement the aspect of Charles's superiority in his adversary's mind.  The Acolytes stood, circling the display in the middle of Avalon's proud structure.  Logan was crouched underneath Delgado's slow-moving shadow, and he toyed quietly with the gloves that trapped his clawed hands in their grip.  'What has happened to you, Erik – those memories of yours, they have been assembled incorrectly; you're not the man I once knew – just a spectre, a wraith remaining, who cannot seem to rationalize the fury that has welled up inside.'

'My state is the direct result of your interference in world affairs, where you would side with the enemy, only to let your friend take the punishment alone!'  Magneto responded spitefully.  He turned his back on the scene, recollecting his thoughts which were flustering in the argument.  The numbness in his limbs was still present, but the wounds themselves had repaired under Cortez's influence.  It had sapped more from him that he presumed to manipulate Charles's body in such a manner, but it was a mere and simple action; nothing to be concerned about.

'That is your inaccuracy Erik, it is not a matter of "sides"; humans themselves are not your enemy, only the people who would control them!'  Charles validated, throwing away the inhibitions for his safety among the opposition.

'You don't seriously believe that – I know you don't Xavier!  It has always been clear-cut – black and white – more than ever in our day and age.  You cannot certify humanity's actions just as much as they cannot certify yours and mine!'

'Then why try to put them on trial by exercising your apparent intellectual supremacy over them?'

'Because, like you and I already have been; they must now be accountable for their gross misconduct in the face of the blatant truth!  It is not enough that these weakling individuals graze pastures all their lives, oblivious and without being answerable for crimes to nation that rightfully belong at the top of the evolutionary hill.  I cannot stand idly by while we are butchered in the streets and cities for being solely what we are!'

'Neither shall humankind!  That is why they retaliated in such a way – because you asserted your apparent supremacy over their world…'  Charles sighed dejectedly.  'Individuals cannot be responsible for a mob mentality.'

'Then your ineffectual unit of X-children means nothing for your ideology, does it?  If individuals won't be answerable for their crimes when in a group, then you cannot justify defeating my cause and war in Washington, can you?  Your intentions, Charles, brought about the most climactic injustice ever witnessed by a race.  You took out the one true voice that had enough might to alert the world of its wrongs.'

'You were not there to "alert the world", Erik, you appeared on the President's front lawn for all to see, so that you might have him executed on International television!  You were the black-robed judge, the bribed and secured jury, and the zealous executioner, all in one power-mesmerised maniac.'  Charles responded, spitting his venomous retorts with warranted reason.  'We defeated you and only you, Erik!  That is the crux of the matter!  My "mob" was brought together to combat the evils of the world in my place.  A collective succeeded in the job far more easily than I would have done by myself.  We are now the only chance to inform the globe of its treatments towards mutants.  We,' he breathed out a pent-up sigh of relief 'are the future of mutantkind.'

Magneto leaned to the floored Xavier, crouching on his haunches.  'To bury your head in the sand?  Shake hands with men who cannot control their own divisions and armaments?  Create peace with a people that hate and despise you?  Perhaps you are content with the low road for the future of our species, Charles, but I will enforce our stay here, and what is more – I will make a statement so plain and simple, that even a child will comprehend the nature of discrimination.  No-one can convince me otherwise; not even you.' 

Nodding to his Acolytes, Magneto stood triumphantly and walked over to the view from his throne room.  Verdant homelands met his withered eyes, and he bowed his head in solemn promise to the mutant offspring of the evolving Earth.

'The self-styled lord of the jungle – a voice for a race – this man isn't a saviour, a messiah!  He's possessed with a superiority complex, and haunted by the nightmares of Auschwitz and the Holocaust!  He is only dreaming, and you are all buying into it – humankind themselves, like every other aspect affected on a human nature, cannot be forced to accept something, however crucial or trivial!  The impact of variation will not settle if fear is introduced into the open wounds, you must engage a peace process – filter the anxiety out until nothing is left but open arms!'  Charles exclaimed to his Acolyte captors.  He was being dragged away in the arms of Delgado, while the Cortez sister accompanied him.  Her uncompromising, revolted stare thrashed against his bare and unprotected face.  'Your sentiments are those of a weakling, Xavier – no wonder you have never understood the bigger scene.  Trying to eke out a meagre existence among people who run at first sight – how is it possible to accept their insanity?'  She asked.

'I don't have to accept it at face value – that aspect of human nature, though it seems to have eluded you, is present in all of us.  Just look to your master Magneto for his great lack of understanding of the human condition.'  He replied, exhausted.

'We don't have to; mutants are an altogether more advanced species, whose condition betters humanity in every respect.  An all too human sympathy for a lesser species is what separates our dream from yours, Xavier.' 

Anne Marie remained adamant while she led him back to his quarters.

                                                *        *        *

'Give me a name, mon ami, 'fore I serve you.'  Remy asked standing in the rain-soaked muddy flooring of the warehouse's underbelly.  He waited, staring at the figure while the scientists gathered behind him, ready to have their greatest feature unveiled.  Rogue was hoisted to her feet by Mystique, but Sabretooth shoved her back into the cell roughly, stepping in after her.  He slammed the door shut while the towering figure thrust the revolving bolt open on the next cell door.  Staring incredulously at his previous shelter, Remy suddenly felt a sharp and hefty point reach onto his spine, and froze while Mystique's pistol kept his focus on his new master. 

The door slid open, grating against the dirt-covered floor, and as the light inched through the gaps, Spaskyich was standing still in the centre of his prison.  The towering figure stepped out of the way while several scientists flooded in through the door to check on their specimen.  Excited, comical chattering issued from inside and Spaskyich waded through the mass to the corridor outside.  In a bizarre spectacle, the monitoring men backed off, and the large, gruff Texan was left to wonder.  He looked to Remy, leering deviously, and then to Mystique.  Finally his gaze fell on the towering figure who strode toward him menacingly.  'Who the hell are you?'  He raised the question, looking the giant up and down.  Remy regarded the distanced interaction, noticing the unrealised familiarity between the two. 

'Doctor!'  The figure growled sinisterly.  'I am Doctor Nathaniel Essex, Commander Spaskyich, and I believe you are owed for your gift to me!'

A hand shot out as Hawk had time to squirm uncomfortably, but the grasp incapacitated the Texan before he could even struggle.  He wormed in Essex's grip, squealing like a stuck pig.  'Take him away!'  He tossed the man to the scientists, and nodded to Mystique.  Repositioning the gun from Remy's unprotected back, to Hawk's lame body, she squeezed the trigger and let a bullet loose.  It impacted in a spectacular blossoming flower of blood and tissue on the side of Spaskyich's skull, leaving the ex-Commander on the puddle-laden floor.  The scientists screeched as their clothes were coated in a fine spraying sheen of crimson, and Essex shot them a look of obdurate intensity.  They reluctantly carted his body onto a concealed gurney while Remy reeled from the actions, standing alone in the corridor.  Sabretooth sleuthed from the shadows, and motioned the catatonic Cajun forward with a sharp jab. 

                                                *        *        *

In a secluded corner of the giant adjoining hallway, Fabian Cortez led a shackled Logan into his conversation.  Cortez's abilities alone might be enough to combat the former Acolyte-inspired mercenary if he should break free, but he was counting on the smallest crowd possible for such a surreptitious interaction.  After Magneto had dismissed them due to rising stress and anger at Charles's failing argument, Delgado and Anne Marie led the opponent away while Logan still knelt in the throne room, angry and agitated.  Practically forgetting his appearance at Avalon, Magneto bypassed his prisoner and went to his personal quarters.  Unfortunately for the feral mutant Cortez was still watching him closely, and the entire land was filled with a sea of fanatical followers, all who would recognise him at first sight as one of the biggest traitors to their ruler and the mutant cause.  Forgoing his future punishment at such treacherous activities, Cortez decided to use their disposable assassin for more of a perfidious nature. 

A falsely warm smile greeted Logan's haggard looks, and he sneered as the Spaniard sported the three lined cuts across his chin from their earlier mortal engagement.  Cortez lifted a hand with a thin paper file in it, and waved the documents under Logan's nose.  He grinned as the man recognised the name tag stuck to the top of the material.  'You know what this is.'  He said, opening the file himself and gracing its written words and pictures with his own eyes.  Logan shifted uncomfortably in his bonds, and stared out of the huge glass windows displaying the Savage land before them.  It was not long ago he was brought here as a guest for a particular job, but having defied that job, and its intentions, he was here now as a traitor in handcuffs.  It sickened him on some level, knowing that he might have prevented this mistake if only his good heart had not reached out to Rogue and Remy, the two lost causes who had probably abandoned New York already. 

'It's very important this – you might even say it's a key to who you are.'  Cortez chided.  He leafed through it further.

Logan knew what he was holding; it was a small inch of paper, just part of a much greater collection of everything that detailed his life before and during the Weapon X operations.  It contained lost memory fragments on the Department H contingency in Canada, the names of Doctors, Nurses and twisted scientists that all worked on him while under the care of his previous mentors.  It would mention the fellow operatives, the missions, the training and all sorts of miniscule details.  Hawk Spaskyich was in there somewhere, but as Logan rightly assumed, everything within that document was fragmented, and would ultimately lead him no closer to the truth about his past than thinking about it all would.

'Give it to me then, pal.'  He replied.

'Not yet, Wolverine.  Not yet.'  Cortez placed his hands behind his back, and straightened.  'First you must do something for Magneto – a requirement that was originally in your contract, but which you clearly didn't achieve.  Or couldn't maybe, I can't recall how you put it outside the Mansion grounds.'

Logan eyed him dubiously, and wondered if the devil was going to solicit exactly what he was thinking.

'I want you to wipe out the rest of the X-Men.'

'Sure!'  Logan jumped, grinning.  'Why of course I will!'

Cortez smiled wanly, and then gave the arrogant pig a quick strike across the jaw.  Logan stumbled over onto his back, his full attention on the dangerously maniacal Acolyte.  'Ya better watch yourself there bub, 'cos at the first chance, I'm gonna gut you like a goddamn fish.'  He spurted out, spitting away a glob of blood and saliva.  It landed on the polished toe-cap of Cortez's right boot.  'How amusing this is your only retort.'  Cortez cracked the boot down on Logan's ribs, wiping the speck away in a mess of torn clothes.  'If you don't do what I command, then our lord Magneto is going to tear the very metal that is bonded to those useless bones of yours out of the skin that shields it, and you will be parading our grounds looking like a storm drain for the rest of your life.'

'My healing factor makes up fo' ya boss's futility, though, Fabian, so I doubt I'll be lookin' like that for long.'  Logan responded, sitting up and wincing from the force on his chest.

'You can't resist all of us put together, Wolverine, even if you are the "world's deadliest merc".  We will rip you apart, and leave nothing behind but some adamantium-laced bones for the vicious vultures to pick over.  Besides,' he finished, flicking through the file for display once more 'who would want to read this if you're not present anymore.'