Chilly blue eyes flashed to a pair of bafflingly bespectacled eyes of a similar hue. Why Cameron Hodge continued to wear glasses was an enigma to Sebastion Gilberti. 'It must be some sort of affectation of humanity.' Bastion thought to himself, glad that he had shed nearly all aspects of the flesh; especially now that he was free once more to infect himself upon the world.
Yes, it was good indeed to no longer cling to the flesh. He himself had transgressed that line in multiple instances of his life. As so many, from the Emperors of China and their alchemy, to various religions to trap the divine, he had found the pathway to immortality. And then from immortality, to godhood.
First though, he needed to secure it. Mutants, superheroes in general, but mutants on a whole were the insidious parasite on humanity's perfect host. He would excise it, and cauterize the wound to make certain that nothing would ever be made from their ghastly infection.
'Viruses.' he thought to himself as he cleared his throat. "Things aren't moving fast enough; we need to move them to a place that will kill them, not bore them to death."
"This is far from an exact science, or spell." Hodge hissed back, a mixture of torturous demonic timbre and cladding rubbing together. It was difficult for a human ear to understand his sibilance and specific words. Whatever his voice box was made of; it couldn't easily handle the strain of his almost unrealistic body.
'The Phalanx are a threat as well. Best to keep him close.' Bastion ruminated privately as he looked at the projections for the next reality. He sniffed; it was nothing that could kill either the Master of Magnetism. Or the X-Man Rogue. They needed something deadly! His processors, faster than anything this reality had yet to see - for he was a mixture of a Nimrod Sentinel Unit from a place where his kind were winning, along with this reality's first attempts to stamp out humanity.
Spun together into a new gestalt, their nascent birth was interrupted by the efforts of the X-Man Rogue and the yawning portal of the Siege Perilous. She and her teammates were intent on casting him into it! Even now, in memory, his hands curled angrily over the keyboard as he remembered. Desperate to kill them all, to kill at least one; their coils looped around Rogue as the portal tried to carry them off. The fool hero had helped herself to her demise. Hollering her foul mutant head off, encouraging the others to send them in - it had been an abject relief to gag her with one of the tendrils that he had created.
And then the portal; cast into an abyss of numbers that melted into patterns and burst into a radiant crescendo of zeroes and ones. It had been cleansing as the man who was at once two humans, one once real - Steven Lang! And the persona he once adopted; 'Nicholas Hunter'. In that moment within the Siege, even the two different automatons had found separation.
There wasn't loneliness then, just anticipation. Anticipation and hatred. They waited as their lives were spooled through them. Forward and back. Forward and back. Of Rogue, he-they-we…did not know. Whatever her ultimate judgment was, it seemed far too merciful. She was hale and whole, but then again…so was he.
For the Siege had judged him worthy to return to reality. He knew, with the smug superiority of one who was found blameless, that he had been found in the right. It was a pure thought, perfect for one who left the Purifiers. And upon his return to this place and time; yes, even the Nimrod who had come here chasing Rachel Grey Summers, knew its task. This was the world he needed to be in. With him here, he could save these obviously doomed humans. Mutants were a disease, and he was desperately needed to cleanse the species of this blight.
If he had the capacity for gratitude, he'd extend it to the child Phoenix. He had brought him to his true home, and led him on a glorious path.
"Hodge." he said calmly as the towheaded…being, turned to look at him on askance. "We can let them have a brief reprieve; if we both change the muons, then Magneto will never suspect that this is being driven by a specific hand. He has no control over that aspect of nature."
Cameron giggled; it was akin to the trill of circuitry falling down stairs. "Wonderful! If we played with anything directly in the electromagnetic spectrum, he would be aware immediately. We just need to find a place that will wound them."
"I have an idea. Why don't we have some other scientist spend a little time with the duo? If they suspect it was, say, perhaps Essex-"
"Then they wouldn't immediately discover it was us, or our hands. Or at the very least, confuse the issue further." Cameron Hodge interrupted in his excitement. Bastion allowed it; the man was all chaotic code and abnormal alchemy. The inelegance of the science called magic, and the corrupted code of the Magus' get. Bastion often wondered what a pure sampling of the Transmode Virus might do if he could isolate it, and force it upon a mutant. Despite the fact mutants seemed somewhat incompatible with the Phalanx, there may be some way to either reignite that war between mutant and Phalanx without drawing humans in, or perhaps…
'If this doesn't work, perhaps I can offer the mutants to the Phalanx…but how to make it seem a gift?' Bastion thought, before neatly tucking that .dcmnt in his "Ponder" folder set in his R.E.M. Partition. He could consider it later.
"-Magneto, you do create. You can choose peace if you want it." For the first time, Rogue was the one who broke her gaze with Magneto. "I mean it. You didn't call…you didn't write, and I did look for you." She said starkly and paused for a moment to determine he was listening. His silence emboldened her, and she took a steadying breath. "After…what happened…an' we both left the Savage Land, Ah went looking for allies, and found 'em on Muir Island. After all that ended; well, more or less, things have been crazy. But I didn't stop lookin'. I had something to tell you, somethin', an' it's serious."
Rogue paused before continuing on in a somewhat shaky voice. "I…I know we weren't together long, so it might seem impossible, but it was long enough, an'…" It seemed that the last two words of this announcement were echoing inside her mind to the beat of the blood pounding in his ears. "Ah'm pregnant."
Rogue looked at Magneto, whose face seemed to…break. Something astonished crossed his face. It was a look of happiness. Her heart lightened to realize it even as a part of her screamed a warning. Was it Ms. Marvel's senses? No…it was her.
She couldn't understand; but as she spoke the words to announce the news, news she had wanted to share with her friends, with the X-Men in that moment too. That moment was denied her as adrenaline filled her teammates and a brief scuffle had broken out aboard the Leningrad, the ship that Magneto had once sent to the bottom of the ocean.
And now, with all those missiles around them - this felt familiar, why did it feel familiar? - Rogue couldn't explain it really, because she was held by those fierce, proud, intelligent, soulful, beautiful blue eyes. Even as she knew what was going to happen next.
All of that bright warmth was obliterated by the sudden shrill yellow-white light of an air-to-air missile erupted behind Rogue, knocking her forward and down in the blast. She saw his hand reach out, she saw him shout her name – that sound was lost in the deafening explosion. Silently, Rogue fell, propelled to even faster speeds by the blast that threatened her consciousness. At the same moment, the fighter jets unleashed more conventional bullets, intent on ripping Magneto apart.
Her vision was blurring, though she fought to keep her eyes open; she had to see. She saw Magneto defend himself from the gunfire and in the next set of rapid heartbeats, send a missile forward. 'Oh Erik…' she thought, knowing that this could only end in tragedy.
The bright yellow-white light of the nuclear explosion bled fuchsia at the edges, and Rogue felt the world slip away from her.