X-men: New Gods for Old

Chapter 1

Silver waited impatiently in the small reception area of the Lucian Magnetics office building. Outwardly he calmly puffed on his cigar, blowing smoke rings to pass the time. Inwardly, he was fuming from waiting so long. This "Mr. Black" was lucky Silver had even showed up after he was summoned here via a brief cryptic holo-message. Now this man had the stones to keep him waiting for an hour.

Silver was a mercenary, a killer, a bodyguard, the best, and he wasn't cheap. Charging his clients so much gave him the option of being picky about which assignments he took. He originally wasn't going to respond to Mr. Black's message, but, something piqued his interest. Maybe it was the promise of more money than he could ever spend. An offer like that definitely meant a very difficult or time consuming job. Perhaps both, in this case. No matter. Silver was confident he could handle anything.

Taking another drag on his cigar, he rubbed his knuckles and thought of his father. Logan, the legendary Wolverine, who ran with the equally legendary X-men back before the Human-Mutant war. Silver had been in one orphanage after another as far back as he could remember. His mutation didn't manifest until puberty. He was fifteen when it happened. The orphanage had encouraged part-time work for the older children as a means to save money for when they got old enough to leave the orphanage on their own. He was working in a waste reduction facility shortly after the war when he got his hand caught in a garbage smasher and ripped it clean off. Within a matter of days, the hand grew back good as knew. Better even.

Since genetic research had come so far, he was able to find out who his parents were. His mother was a Japanese woman named Ariko, who was also a mutant that possessed enhanced strength and agility. He was surprised to learn that Wolverine had been his father. He had read plenty about the X-men as a child, and, ironically Wolverine had been the one whom he had admired the most. That's because he went down fighting to save his own skin, and the skins of those he cared about. That was his only mistake. You got too attached to those people father.

After his revelation, Silver became obsessed with trying to be like his father, at least in skill and fighting prowess. Years of training went by before he took on his first job. His employers were so impressed; he became very high in demand. After two years, he was a millionaire. His last step in his emulation of his father was to pay top dollar for the surgical Weapon-X procedure. It took him years of research to find the right people to perform the grafting of adamantium to his skeleton, as well as, add the retractable claws. Once the procedure was through, he killed the nine people who knew about it. Though he was sixty-four years old, he looked thirty, and was in the best shape of his life. His hair was short, dark, and unruly. He also had his mother's silver eyes, which is where he got his name.

"Mr. Black will see you now." The receptionist piped up.

"About damn time." Silver muttered.

The elevator door opened as he neared. Once inside, he hit the button for the top floor. The elevator began moving so fast, his stomach felt like it was in his feet. As he neared the top floor, the lights in the elevator began to dim almost imperceptibly. Silver's keen eyes registered the change in the lighting with an uneasy wariness.

The doors opened into a dark hallway leading to a large mahogany door. The walls echoed with the impatient clang of his grav-boots on the floor. Without fanfare, he yanked open the door and was greeted by complete darkness in the room beyond. Soft lights slowly lit up the room in a crepuscular fashion. Through the dim lighting, Silver could make out a large desk that looked like it was made of obsidian. An oversized chair rested empty behind the desk.

"Please Mr. Silver, do come in," said a female voice.

Adamantium claws sprung out of both hands as he replied, "Is this some kind of setup?"

"Nonsense, Mr. Silver," a male voice said.

"Then show yourselves!" he barked.

"As you wish," the two voices replied in unison.

As he watched, his shadow in the dim light on the floor began to elongate over to the right side of the desk. The shadow then rose up from the ground to stand erect, changing into the shape of a female and solidifying into an actual person. Her skin was corpse white, and she had dark hair and was wearing what looked like a satin evening gown.

On the left side of the room, a section of shadow folded away into nothing like a cartoonish piece of paper, revealing a man with an average face wearing an all black suit. Although the female was much better looking, their features were close enough to tell that they were twins.

"Neat tricks," Silver said curtly.

"Please have a seat, our father is on his way."

Silver looked around for a chair, the only one he saw was behind the desk. The suit seemed to find amusement in Silver's perplexity, and hesitated slightly before waving his hand and a chair folded out of the shadows on the floor. He sat down roughly and began tapping his boot on the floor. Just then, a cloud of dense, black smoke wafted out from behind the chair and completely enveloped it. Just as quickly as it had come, the smoke disappeared, revealing a very large man sitting behind the desk.

If the man had stood up, he would have been at least nine feet tall. Silver only got a glimpse of his face before the man pulled up the hood of his black cloak. He had what looked like six inch tusks jutting forward from the sides of his chin, a thin and slightly upturned nose, and glowing red eyes. Silver was sure that this man possessed great strength, as well as some as yet unrevealed talents.

"I'll get right to the point Mr. Silver."

Silver chided himself for almost jumping out of his chair. The man's voice was much louder than he'd expected, and it sounded like two large boulders grinding together.

"Please do, and no 'Mr.', just Silver."

"Fair enough, you may call me…Pariah," he almost whispered the last word.

Silver jerked two thumbs at the people on either side of the desk, "Who are these two clowns?" he asked sarcastically.

"They are my children, my son, Pitch, my daughter, Shade."

"Fine then, now about your message-"

"Yes, as I said," Pariah interrupted, "I'll get to the point. I would like to employ your services."

"As what?" Silver stated, more confident that the mountain in the chair before him was speaking his language.

"I would like to hire you as one of my…clowns."

Silver was sure that he could almost see the grin between the tusks that stuck out from the shadows of his hood. "Why me?"

Pariah stood up and slowly began pacing around the dimly lit area as he spoke. "The last war was a disaster for mutants. We lost miserably."

"I had always heard that the war ended in a stalemate, and that the truce was made shortly thereafter."

"We lost!" Pariah boomed, slamming a large, meaty fist on the desk. "Mutants were being slaughtered by the hundreds before my predecessor could gather his forces and fight back. We had almost no chance, we were so few, and the enemy was so many. Charles Xavier and his X-men hid in their school while the rest of us were fighting and dying in the streets."

"You say 'we' and 'us' like you were actually there. The war was just over a hundred years ago."

A small gravelly chuckle floated out from beneath the hood, "I'm much older than I look, a trait we have in common, it seems."

Silver bristled at the comment, "What do you know about me?"

"I know everything about you, including who your father was. I've known about you since you started searching for the final step to become the next generation 'Wolverine'."

Silver moved to the edge of his seat, "What are you saying?"

"Oh come now! Don't be so naïve, who do you think provided the equipment and the manpower to perform your Weapon-X procedure?"

All the air left Silver's lungs. He slowly slid to the back of the chair made of shadow. He was suddenly feeling very vulnerable.

"I did not bring you here to kill you, so brush those thoughts aside. I need your help."

"My help? Silver sat up again incredulous, "What do you want from me?"

"I need you to recruit people, gather forces, and create unrest between humans and mutants. When the time is right we will attack in full force without warning, just like they did to us."

Silver's voice was barely above a whisper, "What are you trying to do?"

"Isn't that obvious by now," he said, slightly amused, "we're going to start a war."