Chapter One:

It's the quiet ones you have to watch out for

~ William Stryker ~
It begins with a new weapon. One never seen before. One never made before. One that will never be made again.

"But it'll get the job done," Adler says airily, waving a hand around. "Magneto will die. As will half the Brotherhood, but that's not your main target, is it? Oh, and it will cost a fortune."

The world's still spinning, because I can't get that image out of my head: the sleek silver wheelchair and the bright red helmet. Charles Xavier, crying endlessly over the body of a dead man wearing Magneto's face and clothes. And a whole world gone silent, destroyed in a fit of rage and grief and pain.

Not for the first time, I wonder exactly what the extent of the relationship between Magneto and Xavier.

Ten years pass with a flick of Adler's finger, and she slips me hints, here and there, about where to get funding, materials, weapons, information, tech, everything I could possibly need to make this project happen in the near future rather than the very, very, very distant future.

Then the weapon is born.

It's a monster, a true, god-honest monster, rising up from the depths of the Weapon X lab like a demon from the very pits of hell. It has eyes but no eyelids, mouth but no lips, nose but no ears, and it talks like a robot. It is a robot, constructed of some sort of brand-new polymer that is based off of adamantium, but for obvious reasons isn't, that has been infused into the subject's bones to make them almost invincible. It can teleport, it can heal instantaneously, it can shoot plasma beams from its eyes. It is immune to any kind of telepathic intrusion or virus or serum. Its brain is wired to a computer so that it carries out all the orders without question, and doesn't stop until the job is done.

"His name is Deadpool," Adler says cheerfully, leaning against the railing like a proud parent. "He never fails at what he does."

I wet my lips. Clear my throat.

God, this weapon is . . . repulsive. If it didn't guarantee Magneto's death. . .

"Deadpool is a mutant too, right?" I ask.

Adler shrugs. "It takes a mutant to kill one," she points out. "It took Magneto and the Professor to kill Shaw, remember? And besides, any kind of robot or machine – you'd have to use metal, of some kind, and there goes any assassination attempt because Magneto'd be on to you faster than anything."

"He instantly heals?"

"So he's practically immortal," she confirms. "You could have used him to end any mutant problems."

My eyes slip, unwilling, to her blind ones. "Could have?"

Adler sighs sadly. "Well . . . you'll see. Let me show you what happens and how to kill Magneto first. I can answer all of your inevitable questions at another time." She looks up at me, uncannily right where my eyes are, despite being blind, and I retract my earlier statement, because Adler is far more repulsively creepy that Deadpool right now. "That's what you want, yes? Magneto dead?"

"Of course. Show me," I order.

She flicks a finger.

I watch myself give the order: "Kill Magneto. Take no hostages. Destroy everything in your path."

I watch Deadpool give a quick nod and then whirl around in precise military step and march away, head held high, eyes unblinking, to carry out the orders.

I watch myself receive the intel reports placing Magneto in the Brotherhood on some vague, tiny island called Genosha. I watch him free it with the Brotherhood. I watch him tell the whole world of Genosha's horrifying crimes, and his determination to transform it into a country run by mutants for mutants.

And I watch as he leaves the safety of the Brotherhood to extend an offer of protection, sanctuary, and housing to the X-Men.

Watch as Xavier refuses, with a sad little smile.

Watch as Magneto's jaw tightens and eyes go dark and how he touches Xavier – gently, reverently, lovingly, in a way that seems impossible from a man so hardened by death and pain.

Watch as they rest their foreheads against each other, breathing the same air, eyes closed, absolutely at peace in each other with Magneto's helmet cast aside and trusting Xavier not to control him and Xavier out of the chair and trusting Magneto to hold him, before Magneto promises that the mansion's safety will always be a top priority for the Brotherhood and Genosha.

I don't really hear the words.

But I know they are spoken, and as genuine as the want, binding and strong and forever burning, in Magneto's soft touches against Xavier's skin, as the love, pulling and undeniable and forever burning, in Xavier's eyes as he looks at Magneto.

Then Magneto pulls away, tucks Xavier back into his chair, and after a long moment spent watching Xavier with regret and love, leaves.

His guard is down as he flies back to Genosha, and I know, again without knowing, that it's because he's caught between wanting to kidnap Xavier and stow him on Genosha for his own protection and wishing that Xavier had taken him over, erased his memories, changed his mind.

And when he lands on the shore, confused by the lack of a greeting, Deadpool is on him before he can even say a single word.

The first blow knocks Magneto back so hard that three ribs crack even before he hits the side of the building and leaves a human-sized dent in it. The second wrenches his jaw out of alignment and nearly takes his whole head off. The third nearly shatters his femur.

Magneto lurches to his feet, snarling in fury and fear, and now Deadpool's dodging bullets and chains and everything else Magneto can command.

"You'd dare attack a brother?" Magneto roars, as the symphony of metal grows under his hands.

And there it is, fear, fear, fear, so strong it makes Magneto's hands shake.

He wonders how long Deadpool has been tracking him. He wonders why he didn't notice. He curses himself for putting Charles in danger.

And, oh, that thought is strange. Charles – all warm with sunshine and honey and sweet fire of regret and shame and want and love – bound up in a nameless fear and undying devotion and loyalty that lasts beyond the grave.

"Magneto will die, yes?" I ask, uneasily, because seeing so much of a man beneath the helmet and finding he is all too real is . . . disturbing.

"Oh, yes. Soon."

Deadpool gets his chance when he hurls a torch at Magneto, who catches it – and in the moment of distraction, Deadpool is hurtling towards Magneto, unstoppable and undeniable, and then Magneto is off his feet, gasping, as unforgiving hands close around his throat, tightening, tightening, tightening –

"Erik!"

A cry echoes across the pavement, but it's too late –

Magneto sags limply in Deadpool's arms, eyes rolled back in his head, heart stopped for good.

Charles Xavier wheels onto the scene, eyes frozen on Magneto's body as Deadpool drops him and lifts an eyebrow at the newcomer, brushing away blood like it's nothing. He looks beyond horrified. He looks beyond mad. He looks . . . like a monster.

"What have you done?" he shrieks.

Deadpool doesn't answer. He can't. He's just a robot.

Xavier puts two fingers to his temple. Erik, please, Erik, Erik, Erik, wake up, please wake up, Erik, Erik, Erik –

But it's already far too late.

"No!"

The cry is wrenched from somewhere deep and primal in Xavier, somewhere cold and unforgiving, somewhere relentless and heartbroken. Magneto's death has broken something vital in Xavier, some kind of barrier or gate or control, something that I know instinctively was never meant to be broken because . . . well, it just wasn't, but it has and Magneto's death has caused it and Xavier will never, ever be right again, because Magneto's death has shattered him beyond any kind of repair or reparation or . . . or . . .

I can't think of the word.

"Humanity," Adler says quietly. "That's the word you're thinking of. Humanity." She lifts her chin. "The Professor dies right now."

I flick my eyes back to the scene. "What? How?"

I didn't ask for that.

The entire scene shakes. The world goes cold, as cold as Xavier's eyes are now becoming, and blue fire erupts around his wheelchair, crawling up his legs to frame his face, and his eyes turn a bright, blazing blue, like the stars, and he puts his hands to the armrests and stands.

Who sent you?

The question blazes across the room, leaving my eyes filled with stars at its power. Xavier is far more powerful than he seemed.

"He isn't Xavier anymore, William Stryker."

"Then who the hell is this?" I demand, because of course there can't only be one mutant threat, there has to be a dozen crazy terrorists that I have to take care of. Jesus, why couldn't one be enough?

Deadpool gives an anguished cry and collapses, wailing, wailing, wailing so unnaturally it makes the hair at the back of my neck stand up. His skin boils and then starts vanishing, cell by cell lifting away as Xavier dismantles him on an atomic level, suppressing his mutation so he can't heal completely but leaving enough of it intact to put Deadpool in unbearable agony.

You will pay for this, the not-Xavier hisses, fists clenched, eyes like stars, blue fire outlining his body. You will all burn for this. I will never forgive you.

Adler smiles, soft and sad. "His name is Onslaught. He is a level five telepath and telekinetic whose power is outmatched by no one yet alive. The Professor kept him locked down because Onslaught is rather . . . reactionary," she says. "He has similar goals as the Professor, but is much more violent. As you can see."

And I do, I do.

Xavier turns and leaves Genosha. The city falls in ten minutes, and is dismantled to dust, every living being and inanimate object alike, seconds later. He then turns and moves himself to levitate into the air, heading for America, and every single country he flies over is ripped to atoms and dispersed as he does so, such is the power of his fury. Mutant and human, old and young, no matter who they are, they die.

When he reaches Westchester, the mutants that try to stop him fall like puppets with their strings cut, lying on the ground with their eyes wide and unseeing, the trace of their last words on their lips.

When he gets to Langley, everyone is dead within one second.

Except me.

"Who – Who are you?" I watch myself bluster, backing away, terrified, emptying round after round is so easily dispersed.

Xavier cocks his head. You weren't even brave enough to kill him yourself, he murmurs, but the words ring in my ears and make the future me scream in agony as the words are branded, seared into his mind and soul. You dared to send one of our brothers to betray us instead. You dared to touch him. You dared to kill Erik. For that, you will pay as no one else will.

"Go the hell away!"

Xavier shrugs. As you wish.

And he does go away – because the first thing he deprives the future me of is sight. Then hearing. Then smell. The taste. Touch remains, as does the ability to scream.

The sun rises and falls seven times before the future me's heart finally, finally gives out and Xavier lets me die.

Xavier turns on his heel and rises into the sky like a god. You have harmed me irreparably, he thinks to the whole world – well, the bits that are still left. So here is what you shall pay.

The whole world screams and claws and falls as he triggers mutations in every remaining human, forcing them to become mutant, to manifest, to become often what they feared and despised. But not a single person becomes a telepath. Or a metalkinetic. And for a moment, he makes them share his mind, to see the mental map of life spread out, to taste the shared joy and happiness and greed and anger that every living person experiences, to see that they are the same, are one, are equal.

Xavier makes his way back to Genosha, and there – there is the scene I have seen.

Xavier, keening wordlessly and endlessly over Magneto's body, as the world fades and crumbles to dust around them, lost forever in his grief and his rage and his pain.

And the world reasserts itself.

I sit bolt upright, gasping, and suddenly it's so hot that I am nearly falling out of my chair.

"What the hell?"

Adler shrugs. "You wanted Magneto dead? You saw what happened."

I take a swallow of water. And then another. And the another. And wish desperately for something far stronger, because that was horrifying.

"It will happen if Magneto dies?" I ask finally. "There's no way around it?"

Adler shakes her head. "In every version, no matter how or when Magneto dies, if he dies by your hand or even on purpose – Onslaught pops up, takes over, and pretty much destroys the whole world. I have never seen a single vision of anything different." She offers me a pitying smile. "And you thought that Magneto was your worst enemy, hm? Newsflash: he's not."

I swallow. So. Xavier is powerful. Devastatingly so.

"Then show me how to kill him."

Adler sighs. "You are going about this wrong way, William Stryker," she mutters.

"Just show me the damn vision."

"Fine."

This time, I'm prepared for a world gone mad, but I hope that's not too bad. Magneto can't wreak the level of destruction that Xavier can, as he's not a telepath.

Then the visions manifest, and I see that the world is somehow, just as bad.

If not worse.

And Magneto stands in the center of it, face wet with tears that never stop, clothes soaked with blood from wounds that never close, and Xavier's still body clutched close to his chest as he makes the world pay for Xavier's death.