Stryker Goes on the Offensive

"He's still resisting," One of Stryker's scientists told Stryker. Xavier was hooked up to several wires and strapped to a lab table.

"A few more grams of sodium pentothol might do it," Stryker told him. He looked at the monitors. They reflected images sent directly to Xavier. In them he was killing his own X-Men one by one. "Yes if we can get him to turn on the ones he loves, think of what he will do to total strangers."

"He's not broken yet," One of his men told him.

"No but he will be," He looked at the next room through the plexiglass. There were two huge armored chairs with figures strapped inside. "Ironic isn't it? His own power will be his downfall. He feels their pain and agony and knows that he is the source of it. The more pain they feel, the more pain he feels…"

Anne staggered in. "Sir…I failed. Forgive me…" She slumped in a chair.

"What happened?" Stryker asked her, concern on his face. He ordered one of his men. "You! Help her now!"

"The muties had help," Anne grunted as her wounds were bandaged. "Mostly dumb luck. First some low life scum gang interferes, then a cop and finally some nut with a sword decides to play hero and took the rest of my men out. Me and Johnson are the only ones who made it back. Johnson's in intensive care. He lost his arm to that creep."

"Filthy mutants…" The attendant bandaging Anne grunted.

"No matter," Stryker waved. "By now the nanites will have finished them off anyway."

"Just wish they didn't take out the rest of our men with 'em," Anne hissed. "Just like a mutie…"

"It's all right my child," Stryker put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You still fought valiantly. That is what's important. Have the medics take a look at your wounds." He ordered the man bandaging her wounds. "Take her to the infirmary. Anne your report can wait for later."

"Sir I'm still functional enough to accompany you to the sermon," Anne said. "I won't let my injuries get in the way."

"Your faith and determination is refreshing my child," Stryker smiled warmly. "Go on, let the medics look at your wounds. As for the rest of you take a break for about half an hour."

"Sir?" One man asked. "But our schedule…"

"Will be met in plenty of time," Stryker waved. "A brief rest won't do any harm. Might do some good. Besides, I wish to be alone with them," He indicated that the others leave.

When they left he pressed a button opening up the helmet parts of the chairs, revealing the sweat soaked heads of Ororo and Scott. "Don't bother struggling, those special chairs were designed to contain mutant powers. They're also psyonically linking you with Xavier so he's feeling what you are feeling. Namely the slow damage the nanites are doing to you as well as his directed psychic attack. There's nothing you can do but accept your fate."

"Nanites…" Scott gasped.

"Yes I've purposely slowed down the damage of the nanites in order to prolong your suffering," Stryker said. "It's working wonders on Xavier."

"What about Kitty and Danielle?" Ororo asked.

"I would not concern yourselves with them," Stryker told them. "They're dead now as soon your entire species will be."

"No…" Scott whispered.

"Why…?" Ororo gasped. "Why do you hate us so much? What have we ever done to you?"

"Because you exist," Stryker looked at her. "And your existence is an affront to the Lord."

"How can you say something like that?" Scott shouted. "Who are you to judge that?"

"How?" Stryker's eyes grew cold. "HOW? Do you have any idea what damage your kind creates in this world? No. How could you?"

He took a breath. "I was not always a man of God, oh no. Once I was a Master Sergeant of the Army Rangers. I was moving up in the world and had a wife. Then I was assigned to guard a secret nuclear testing facility. We were assured that there would be no real danger. Lies! All Lies!"

"My wife became pregnant and when her time was almost upon us we went out to visit her family in Phoenix. However, there was an accident in the desert and my wife gave birth prematurely. He…it was a monster."

"Your child was a mutant?" Scott asked.

"It was not a child but an abomination!" Stryker roared. "I disposed of it quickly, then my poor wife…So that she would never know what happened or feel pain of the knowledge of what she brought into the world…I put her out of her misery."

"You killed your family…" Ororo was horrified.

"I tried to kill myself as well," Stryker said with a wry smile. "But fate had other plans for me. I survived. But for years I was like the living dead. My career in the army suffered and I was eventually discharged. I wandered a lost soul alone for many years. Until the day I learned of your kind…That is when I had a revelation. It all made sense. God was warning me of the evil that would befall mankind though my wife. And I knew why I survived the experience…and why your kind must perish."

"So you blame mutants for the deaths of your family even though you were the one who killed them?" Scott asked. "That's sick!"

"What are you doing to the Professor?" Ororo asked.

"I am making him the perfect instrument of your destruction," Stryker told them. "By tomorrow night I will not only prove that mutants aren't human, but I will wipe out all resistance and your precious X-Men. Now is the perfect time. The mutants will be off guard and careless after the attack on Washington DC. This could be our one chance to wipe your kind from the earth once and for all."

"You can't do that! We won't let you!" Ororo shouted as Stryker closed the helmets again.

"I know what I have to do," Stryker told them. "I will prove that our species is the rightful inheritors of the earth and that mutants have no right to it. I will prove your species is nothing more than a race of demons in front of the world and there's nothing you can do to stop me!"