Chapter 4 Essex's Reveries
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Marvel, except for my original characters, of course. But if Marvel wants to use them, they can. Feel free to post this, or any other Glaivester fic, anywhere, but please notify me so I can brag about it.
[A/N Apocalypse and Sinister are discussing the subject of genocide in this chapter. Be warned that their opinions are somewhat offensive, but, I believe, consistent with their characterizations.]
Responses to reviewers:
Firefly25: Correct about Kitty. Although it's not that she thinks the Red Skull is not a big deal per se, she just doesn't see how he could be a threat without a government backing him up. And yes, the bad guy referred to is Victor von Doom. In this series I am ultimately going to incorporate a lot of Marvel characters.
Mannielf18: Talia is the daughter of Kurt and Wanda. She is about three to four months old but is growing up very rapidly due to genetic alterations by Mr. Sinister. For a more detailed account of her backstory, click on my name and then read "The Essex Plan" and "The Apocalypse Effect." She is based on a character in the comic book series "Exiles," Talia Josephine "T.J." Wagner, aka Nocturne, the daughter of Kurt and Wanda from an alternate universe. You can find out about her by typing her name into a search engine.
Witch-Uk: Glad you like it. By the way, if you're wondering, I am refraining from referring to Talia as "T.J." just yet because I plan to have it be a nickname that she gets as she gets older.
Nathaniel Essex had frowned when he had heard the news of the Red Skull's escape from his spy network. Apocalypse, for his part, just laughed. Sinister became upset at this, and the two got into a debate over the Nazis, and Hitler in particular.
"Hitler was a fool! He wasted good genetic material," reasoned Sinister. "Instead of using the concentration camps to slaughter those who have been genetically proven inferior, he went by race! He killed large, large numbers of Jews, and Ashkenazi Jews [A/N in case you didn't know, Ashkenazi Jews means European Jews] are the ethnic group with the highest percentage of mutants! No telling how many of my possible test subjects that he threw into the garbage!
"And moreover, his wars threw the world into chaos! He kept conquering and conquering, and breaking alliances, and throwing things into a mess! Years of research and work on various families, spoilt when many of my most promising test subjects were drafted and sent to die! And his irrational obsessions - so many top scientists killed off or forced to flee. Hitler set back our cause by decades!"
"Nonsense," laughed Apocalypse. "While it was not his intention, he ultimately served his victims admirably. Weeding out the members who were too weak to survive adversity, leaving only the strong, those who can survive at any cost. All races should be so lucky as to have such a purge! He may well have been a madman, but his wars served the betterment of the human race admirably, by forcing the best and brightest to come to the front!"
"But we can accomplish our grand design quicker and easier by careful, controlled manipulation!"
"You still don't understand. Chaos breeds toughness. You will never make your master race by dint of effort and by determining the genes to give them. Only chance and adversity will burn away the chaff and leave the worthy in its wake."
"Chaos is entropy. Evolution is too slow. Without planning, it will continue to be so..." he drifted off in a reverie:
* * * * * * * *
A University in Paris, France. November 1939.
Nathaniel Essex couldn't find Professor Erskine anywhere. They had been discussing a plan to use technology to enhance a person's mind and body for several years now, and Erskine was about to begin building a prototype.
Finally he found a note. "Sorry to tell you this, but I am leaving to work with the American government. My devices may help them to build an army of super-warriors to defeat the Nazi menace. France is a hopeless case. It will be overrun in a matter of months. I am racially three-quarters Jewish, and in terms of religion am semi-observant, and cannot risk staying here if the Nazis take over. My friends Prof. Goldstein and Prof. Blum have already been spirited off to G-d-knows-where. Sincerely, Prof. Erskine [A/N Many Jews believe that it is sacrilegious to write out "God" "Lord," or other titles for God on paper that is intended to be thrown away, and so they replace one letter with a hyphen]."
A few minutes later he heard the news that Prof. Erskine had been killed. Apparently it had been hoax, and Erskine had been working for the Americans on something called "Project Rebirth" under the pseudonym Dr. Reinstein. But he was killed for real shortly thereafter by a Nazi spy, preventing him from correcting the side-effects of his method, the ones that doomed Steve Rogers to cryogenic stasis immediately after the end of World War II.
* * * * * * * *
A concentration camp, in 1944.
Essex, disguised as a Nazi officer, walked over to the group of children in the camp. They were to be killed in an hour. He had to save one of them. One of them who was a mutant, a powerful one. Perhaps to be one of the most powerful mutants alive.
"Boy!" he hollered. "To my personal room! I need someone to shine my boots."
Once inside, he instructed the boy, "Now shut up and stay hidden under the bed until I tell you to come out. There is a chamber pot in here if you need it."
And so it had remained until the boy had been rescued from the camp by an American and a Canadian. [A/N I am referring to the events in the episode "Rebirth" here. I am assuming that Steve Rogers was put in stasis around 1944, a week or so after this incident].
"Go, now!" hissed the guard to the boy when the camp was broken into.
"What if I get shot?"
"I'll make certain you are protected." The guard's face suddenly went all white, with a diamond in the forehead, and his teeth extended into fangs. "You must have noticed your developing ability to sense metal. Some day you will be able to manipulate it with your mind to a tremendous degree. When you do, I will come calling and ask for your assistance for the mercy I have shown you."
The young man nodded.
"My name is Essex. Nathaniel Essex. I never caught yours?"
"Lensherr. Eric Magnus Lensherr."
* * * * * * * *
1949, at an old building full of records.
"Samuel Gallblum, Jewish. Was developing the ability to mentally control all manner of birds. Chashka Nicotikos, Gypsy. Could increase other's powers by touching them. Ichabod Finkel, Jewish. Ability to make matter disappear at a touch. All dead. Killed because they weren't 'Aryan.' But they were superior over 99.9% of Hitler's so-called 'Master Race!' What a stupid, stupid, waste."
Nathaniel Essex walked down the corridors. He supposed he had to admire the Nazis in a way. Their vision was similar to his, and they pursued it ruthlessly and efficiently. Yet, their basis for determining who lived and died was irrational. And their impatience and desire for conquest caused their downfall.
Now eugenics, previously a respected idea for directing society, was a dirty word. No longer could Essex hope to work within the system by encouraging the best and the brightest to have plentiful children while the rest were discouraged from doing so or forcibly sterilized. If anyone suggested such things, they would be accused of trying to commit genocide. And so, ironically enough, the only way to achieve his vision of improving humanity would be to do just that. To kill those who stood in his way or who were inferior and to be ruthless in doing so, so as to prevent those of lesser vision from stopping him.
* * * * * * * *
"He could spoil my plans." Sinister began to seethe.
"They deserve to be spoilt. I gave you immortality so to be my herald into the world, and you repaid me by perverting my vision. But the good thing is, my vision will come to pass anyway. You are unleashing forces which you will not be able to control."
Sinister stared at Apocalypse. "My warriors will soon enough be sent on their first mission. Don't you worry about that!"
Apocalypse laughed. "They are agents of chaos. How a control freak like you can use them I cannot fathom."
"I plan to start a war between countries. A mutant war. In the meantime, I will continue to add to my menagerie in order to have more supermutants to populate my new world. The first three races have already been planned. They will be the aristocracy of my society. Now to create the diverse other populations that will rule this planet, and which will, in due time, spread out to conquer the universe."
"But a war will cause chaos." Apocalypse smiled. He shifted his Pharoah-like headgear and noted to himself that he needed to use the eye to enhance himself before too long, the same way that he had enhanced the Nasty Boys.
"Not if the war starts an arms race to build better mutants. I plan to offer my services to both sides, and by the time I am done, I will have more supermutants than you can shake a stick at. At the same time, I will manipulate the war so as to eliminate as many wild-types as possible - excepting of course those worthy of modification like myself - and when they start sending me mutant to enhance, will arrange to kill those mutants who are not worthy of enhancement."
"Biding your time."
"I am nearly ready. The technology of the Eye is a great boon."
Apocalypse thought to himself. "Sinister's plan will fail, and chaos will rule. But there is no harm in speeding the chaos up a bit." He let his telepathy stretch out to his agents throughout the world.
~Mystique. Bring Schmidt to me.~