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T H E B R O T H E R H O O D O F M U T A N T S
Genosha
Hammer BayBobby Drake already missed the brief window of freedom he had enjoyed on Genosha, able to walk freely across the island without attracting stares of any kind. Then M-Day had happened. The stares were not the same as those he had learned to experience elsewhere, not the outright glare of hate, but the insidious wrath of envy. The Mutates had lived for years as slaves and sacrificed much for freedom, then fate had robed them of their identity, human again when it was finally free to be a mutant. He'd be pretty pissed off as well.
He'd take envy over hatred though, it didn't stop him buying a drink. Hammer Bay was still in the process of rebuilding, a process which had slowed down dramatically following the depowering of most of the population, but the majority of the city now functioned, just with a few lasting scars.
O'Malley's was the typical attempt at an Irish bar by foreign nationals who had never been to the country. It predated the Revolution, but its old owners had either fled or hadn't bothered to return to claim it. New ownership came from among the Mutate population, of which Bobby had heard were some of the few to retain their mutant identity in these trying days. Still, the Guiness wasn't bad. Not that he was purely here for the alcohol.
Sliding up to the bar, quite literally, the blue sheened man took a seat. It was only the early afternoon and service, while not enthusiastic, was immediate.
"I'll take a pint, and I'll pay for five more you can keep if you answer a question of mine.""Depends on the question." The man was starting the pour even as he spoke, the non-committal reply barely more than a grunt.
"Girl with green hair, think you'll know who I mean if you've seen her.""I ain't helping you stalk some poor lass now." Bobby didn't know if the somewhat poor attempt at a Gaelic dialect was really part of the act, he hadn't the heart to suggest that was a Scottish term.
"I'm not on personal business." Bobby set the coin down on the bar, a silver piece bearing the Reichsadler, blackened on one side. Much as with the girl he was hunting, if you knew, you knew.
"And I'm still paying." The coin was soon joined by several crisp noted, far more than was required for the lonely pint that was already at his lips. Refreshingly cold, but then so was everything he drank once it had touched his lips.
"Came in a couple of times, asking around about folks. We still keep an eye on new folks for Remy, she's staying at Hoffcraft Motel, little down the ways." It was impressive how many syllables the man could fit in a grunt, but it got the point across.
"Cheers, I'll bring the glass back." Bobby stood, still sipping the pint as he left, taking the coin with him but leaving the notes. It was a short walk, but plenty of time to sink the pint before a reunion he wasn't sure he wished to occur took place.
"Jesus, Bobby, would subtly hurt you?"It was like walking down the street with blue furball Hank McCoy, except the sunlight of early afternoon Hammer Bay reflecting off Bobby Drake and bent as it's rays of light went deeper into the ice blue of one of the original five X-Men. Despite the fact that Magneto was the biggest draw on the island, it was the difference of a royal and a celebrity; there was some cross-over appeal, but the vibe was very different between the two. Magneto was an unofficial royal of Genosha, while the X-Men were celebrities. And the original five X-Men, those the four that were still alive? None seemed to draw more attention than those four.
Lorna's wavy hair was lazily kept up high on her head with a gold jaw-clip, keeping it behind her and down her back. Her denim jacket was time-worn, the back of it covered with flag patches; nearly forty flags from nearly every continent except for Antarctica, including a few unofficial flags, the most unusual of which was a green jungle Xate palm behind the black silhouette of a T-Rex; the Savage Land. With the crimson and gold standard of the Shi'ar Empire a close second. Her jeans were tight things with a thick brown leather belt and silver buckle, coming up a inch or two over her round hips, the teeshirt underneath was black with bold white kanji for Shueisha. Her eyes were covered with black square frame sunglasses, and they never even turned his direction as she walked up from behind him and past, just one pedestrian casually walking past another, shopping bags in hand, the other holding the strap of a brown leather large purse resting off her left shoulder as she marched.
Unlike Bobby Drake, Lorna Dane had no intention of inviting too many eyes and too much attention. She wasn't the 'look-at-me' daughter of Magneto; the other one held that distinction.
He didn't fall into step beside her, nor even more to catch up, watching the figure move past him as any other that moved on the street. That wasn't quite true, she was captivating in a way that no mutant power could replicate, even his own shining skin. The lead had proven true, at least, as he watched her go without directly doing so, had her hips always swayed quite like that?
Suddenly the thought of not arriving empty handed came to mind and he stopped by whatever closest street vendor was hawking something covered in grease, bad for the heart, but oh so good for the soul.
"I'll take two."By the time he looped back around, several hours had flown by, the Sun burning into low Afternoon. One side effect of his relative fame as a member of the X-men made the iconic look of his frozen exodermis well known, but the very much human look he had been forced to adopt for all the years prior had faded back into obscurity. A change of clothes was all it really required. A second factor, his ability to control temperature and his environment, meant that the wrapped taco shells within the bag he held were good as new.
He waited for her in the lobby, at one of several small cafe tables set up in what had once been a fashionable hall. There was establishment catering, but the place didn't seem to mind him bringing in the package from the outside, still, he did the good favour of at least ordering a rum and coke from their own supply. Long before the Revolution, Genoshan rum had been famous across the world. Perhaps it would be again, particular if this taste was anything to go by, and now it came slavery free.
He had time to kill, and another had been ordered by the time his patience paid off, another set in front of him in the case he wasn't stood up from the engagement he had assumed all on his own.
"Keep cool." He breathed to himself, enjoying the benefits of his own terrible pun.
She stood before the table, arms crossed, shades still concealing her eyes while her tone of voice bordered between intrigue and irritation.
“Are you stalking me, Bobby? I didn’t want team pitches, I didn’t want old dramas re-hashed, I didn’t want media attention, I didn’t want anyone to know I’m on the island; in a city where there’s probably a telepath per city block I’m probably hoping against hope there, but even still…what do you want?”"I'd recommend sitting down then." The look he gave her in turn was all intrigue and no irritation.
"No pitches, just carne asada, I hope that sounds a little more appetizing." Long before any of this had all become rather serious, Bobby had always been known as the easy charm of the X-men, and that had carried forth with him into adulthood. It was a little tougher with the weight of history, but he still managed all the same.
Before answering her fully, he began to unwrap his offering, taking up his own portion to manage a bit washed down with the tasting of cola and liquor.
"Sometimes we can't avoid all old dramas, and I think you'd prefer me asking you why you're here all of a sudden, instead of Darkholme or Exodus…. Besides, haven't you heard? We're rather down on telepaths these days.""Sure. You're down telepaths, but all the best ones are still around," she all but snorted, taking a seat and dropping the purse on the floor next to the chair. Then it hit her: his former teammate and friend. Her eyes snapped up to see his face, to see if he was staring, to see if there was some sign the omission had crossed some line, but there was no sign. No outward sign, anyway. One taco wouldn't be enough, but it was a start, especially as she asked the roving waitress for a cerveza,
"Right next to Africa and it's Mexican and pizza that I still see everywhere as I walk around Hammer Bay. Well, the more affluent areas, anyway."There was serious poverty to some of Hammer Bay, much as the mutants, and her father, wanted the issue dealt with there was no magic silver bullet for poverty, but it wasn't a good look...especially when so many of the impoverished were human residents that stayed, or, worse, depowered mutants. Genosha was strange. She'd been there a few days, and it was still just strange. She couldn't help but feel for the depowered; her sister had made her one such victim. It was only Apocalypse that allowed her some restoration of her abilities, and even then...every time she used them it felt more like reading your favourite book, but not your copy, just a copy of it you'd borrowed from someone else. You knew all the words, but everything else about the book was...different, a bit weird.
"I'm sure Raven and Bennet have more pressing matters. Besides, if they knew I was around, he'd know. And if he knew..."Well. That was obvious, she thought.
"They don't know, I suppose these days I'm meant to tell them about this sort of thing." He spoke with something approaching a defeatist sigh, before carrying on with the easy lack of concern, If you're complaining, I'm sure we can find something more local after, I thought a taste of 'home' made for an alright start, though." It was memories, rather than geography, than tied crunching shell of his second bite to any idea of familiarity. That was the same thought of home that made the sudden memory of Jean burn as brightly as she had in his mind, hot enough to melt even him. Still, he kept the reaction from her, she might have brought it on, but it had never been malicious.
He was tempted to leave it at that, an offer to find somewhere else, to breathe in the tastes of the mutant dom's new home, but he kept talking.
"Seemed more likely to work than expecting a text back." There was the usual teasing taunt of his words, but it wasn't entirely untrue. Time apart had made strangers of them, no matter what the past held.
Despite everything, she smiled at her ex-boyfriend, a history that seemed now to be lifetimes ago,
“You never answered the question, Iceman,” his codename being used more as a gentle tease, in the moment.
“I’m not stalking you, Lorna.” He replied with a gentle laugh to the use of his codename, another sip of drink as he leant forwards over the table to prevent an errant bite of taco mix ending up on his clothing.
“You want to pin down exactly what brings me here, watching you walk away down a street again? Curiosity, concern. Maybe any and all of the above.”Lifetimes though it may have been, Lorna could still tell when something was up.
“Bobby…what are they doing? I’ve been around a few days and all I hear is talk about Charles and my father are up to something. Why are they teaming up? What's changed with Xavier?"“Your father isn’t the man he was.” There was another munch of taco, swallowed down with a slight laugh,
“Normally that’s a negative, but now, it really isn’t. Can’t say it makes up for everything that happened in the past, but I’ll take it.” The pause came afterwards, with a softer sigh,
“And, I think Charles is worse, he’s come back, from whoever knows where. It’s like they’ve both been pulled to common ground, an idealistic Magneto and a pragmatic Xavier.” Then the true pain came, the pain which had spurred on his decision to find her without suggesting to the others that there was a mutant unaccounted for on Genosha.
“Whatever it is, beyond making this a home for us all, they’ve not told me.”Lorna Dane took a long drink of the ice cold cerveza, and chuckled at the suddenly grim Bobby Drake.
"Guess I'll have to stick around to find out. We need more tacos, and more alcohol, though. Definitely, definitely, more alcohol."
In days gone by the district of Havershaw Heights had been the epicentre of the vast, unequal, wealth of Genosha. The human elites had dined in luxury on the spoils earned by the slave labour of the Mutates.
It had suffered some of the worst devastation during the Revolution, furious Mutates, finally free from both their physical and psionic chains, along with their sympathetic human allies, had vented the greater portion of their wrath on the district. Even the most moderate of the partisans had little sympathy for any of the families who had resided in such wealth, although the leadership of the Revolution had done what they could to ensure servants and children would not be harmed.
The version of Erik Lehnsherr that had waged nearly a century of war against the human dominated globe would likely have simply rebuilt the district to house elite mutant overlords, but now free of the worst of his madness and paranoia, he had forged a different path. Opulent estates were rebuilt as buildings of governance, of institutions that would support the community and nation. Of great personal note had been The Piotr Rasputin Memorial Orphanage, alongside the latest incarnation of Jean Grey Institute of Gifted Youngsters. All the problems of nation building had hardly been solved, poverty had still sunk its claws into the recently ruined nation, but the demolishment of the estates had gone someway to at least removing the visual markers of inequality.
There did, however, remain one private household in the district, the Palatine House, the home of Magneto. Far more humble than the Presidential Home it had replaced, it nevertheless provided a commanding view over the entire city of Hammer Bay. It was not, however, the man himself, enjoying the view of the city sprawling to the sea. The wind caught in her hair, the red and gold of her gown, Wanda Maximoff tried to drown out the weight of memory and her own power with the vast sensation of the view before her. For the moment, it wasn’t working. No power was without cost, and very little compared to the terrifying force of chaos magic she had worked upon reality. With a single desperate cry she had irreversibly altered her own world, and while she did not know, she felt the echoes had passed beyond, spilling forth into alternate realities she had never even witnessed.
To put it mildly, it was a lot.
Had she meant to do it? There seemed little doubt from those who had witnessed it. Her own memory, her own recollection, was flawed. She couldn’t recall the act, but her heart ached with grief and guilt. Those were not the emotions of an innocent woman, so she must have.
Any further time she may have had to ponder events was interrupted by the sound of the wall unmaking behind her. The Palatine House had been crafted by those with great power for beings of their own ilk to live within. It was deliberately impossible for those reliant on simple human locomotion to navigate, few doorways, even fewer staircases. An impossible maze carved into less space than your average McMansion.
Magneto stepped through the already sealing archway he had formed in the wall behind her, leading out onto the balcony. The house appeared to be made from stone, but there was enough metal running through it to make his act less than a moment’s thought for the ruler of Free Genosha. He made a habit of not wearing his helm these days, signifying the lack of discord among mutants. There was nothing hidden between him and the great telepaths of Mutantkind anymore.
An unforeseen side effect of this for Wanda, and she would imagine her twin brother and the rumoured cases of other children, was a constant reminder of how time and worked differently upon her father. His features were closer to her own in age than a man who had been born close to the dawn of the previous century. Yet another reminder that they were far from a normal family, not even a normal estranged one.
“Wanda, how are you feeling?” Still, the age sometimes crept into his voice. The feeling of the concerned, doting, father he could have been, had the fates been less cruel. Had he been less cruel.
“Better than yesterday.” She didn’t expand on the specifics further. Most days she couldn’t maintain consciousness for long. This was likely the longest she had been awake and present since The Decimation. That should have been a good thing, but illness and madness were a shield against what she had done. Lucidity felt too painful.
He paced close to her, but not enough to be truly familiar, his hands behind his back. She would have to make do with the concern in his voice and expression. In truth, she did not know if she would have appreciated anything more.
“You’re wearing the gown.” The doubt was in his words as he drew in the painful vision of her, a comment which made her own eyes draw down to herself, to the loosely flowing red and gold of royal majesty she was clad in. The casual outfit of a Princess. Exactly that.
“I know, I like it.” It was a harmless enough statement. Never mind the gown was one of the few surviving relics of the world she had built, a world where she
had been a princess, and the gown within which she had annihilated her own people. Thankfully, the man across from her was one of few witnesses who could recall such details. Eventually, perhaps, even that would fade. She hoped so. It really was a lovely gown. It wasn’t the fabric’s fault she was a monster.
Eric either conceded the point or gave up the purpose of engaging within it, moving himself, walking, to the edge of the balcony, alongside, but apart from her.
“It looks almost peaceful from up here.” He was quite correct, everything substantial enough to be visible from this distance had been rebuilt, many districts were thriving in a way they never had even at the height of Genoshan wealth. The greatest conflicts that remained were those hidden from on heigh, that dwelled in the hearts of the disenfranchised and disempowered, in this case, more literally than most.
“This sounds like the beginning of a warning.” Her voice was a soft sigh, barely heard over the call of the ocean wind, roaring up to the nearly mountainous heights of the city’s premier districts.
“Must I fear you too, father?” Since reawakening in this version of reality, she had rarely called him that. She hadn’t meant it to be something of note, but it evidently was.
“Never, Wanda. I know that has not always been true, I cannot claim to have ever been a parent, let alone a good one. But no harm shall come to you, or Pietro, whenever he wishes to return, by my hand, never again.” The words were carefully chosen, expressing the truth of his feelings while accounting for the errors of his past and the difficulties of the present. He had always been good with words, even when there was little else good in him.
“But I cannot hold this nation to that standard. They are angry, and I cannot say they are wrong to be. So long as I am here, you will be welcome, but I understanding of them will only bring you further hurt.”“And you fear what I might do when hurt again?” Once again she did not mean the sense of betrayal that forced itself into her words, but when her large, glistening, eyes turned on her father, she could not help but read the hurt they had caused him. She didn’t regret it, not quite, but she didn’t mean it either.
“Wanda, I…””You are with the Decimator” The archaic tone of Exodus burned into his mind. Charles, even Emma, were always easier to have in his consciousness than Exodus. His telepathy ignited with the zeal of his cause.
”I am with my daughter, Exodus””It is not my place to question, Sire, but..””Then do not, what is it you wish, Exodus?” It had been difficult enough to prevent the zealous mutant from referring to him as such out loud, he had given up the attempt within the privacy of their minds. He was not sure Exodus was capable of that change.
”Scott Summers is with a representative of the US Navy in Hammer Bay.””Indeed, both myself and Miss Frost have approved this.” He still avoided using Xavier’s name when communicating with Exodus, his old friend’s role in the governance of Genosha would have to be made official before the ancient mutant would accept Xavier’s prominent role as anything more than a citizen and adviser of the nation.
”Did you approve an escort of seven score souls and world ending fury?” Exodus lacked subtlty just as much as his words often fell into poetry and allegory. It was a genuine question, damn him.
”Show me.”The conversation took all of a heartbeat, well adjusted minds speaking directly to each other. Already Magento had begun to float into the air as he fixed Wanda with a sad smile.
“I will return, Daughter.”“Fly safe, Father. Rememver they only do what they must.”“As do I.”It was not true flight, that enabled Eric to soar, the way the world distorted around him as the magnetic forces of the Earth propelled him could never be mistaken for it. The air hummed with too much power, crackled with potential. Like a continuous sonic boom, Magneto screamed through the air. He moved with purpose and pace. Had Genosha relied on typical human technologies of electromagnetic detection, they would have gone haywire and winked out. Soon the streaking figure of red in the sky was joined by another, a literally blazing trail, a comet of vengeance.
The land of Genosha quickly gave way to the sparkling expanse of the Indian Ocean. A small land mass, it wasn’t long before it was a distant smudge on the horzion, yet still well within the waters claimed by the sovereign nation. Magneto did not feel they guarded their waters too jealously. Any could pass through the waters of Genosha so long as they meant no harm to Mutantkind, and accepted the status of Genosha as a sovereign state. The fact that none of the UN had yet admitted to such a thing changed nothing. The waters were closed, until the world opened to Genosha.
When the pair of flying mutants came to halt above the crashing tide below, there was little of note to mark it from any other part of the wide expanse. A small outcrop several hundreds of meters to their right denoted volanic activity that might one day, in tens of thousands of years, grow the ambition to become an island, was all that interrupted the sparkling sea. To the nake eye, anyway, to one who could sense through the magnetic currents of the Earth and perhaps the third strongest surviving telepath, it was everything but clear.
”What would you have of me, Sire?” Exodus’ thoughts were not concealed and betrayed him. He would scour the sea if it was his will, end nearly two hundred lives in conflagration for the crime of ignoring the will of Genosha, of Magneto. There was a time when Eric would have agreed, but for now, he would settle for Awe, over Shock.
”Give me their minds, the rest, I shall see to.” While Exodus drifted in the currents of air, the true flight of his telekensis apparent, Magneto appeared utterly static in the air, rooted by forces far beyond the raging winds of Earth. His power ran deep. It was this power he called upon with outstretched hand. At first, nothing about the sight before them changed. Steadily, new waves began to ripple out for the water, a vast shape displacing the tide above it. Soon the creaking groan of tortured metal became audible even over the surf, dark shape rising below.
A moment later, and the shape of the USS Florida broke from the surf, the vast submersible, almost 200 meters of human power, was wrenched from the safety of water. It took more of Magneto’s effort to hold the vehicle together than it did to wrench it from the tide, a structure never designed to exist without the pressure of water suddenly finding itself in the sky. The odd system still broke, although its surface hummed with Magneto’s power, preventing any burst or leak that would spell doom once reset, he had little concern for the death dealing weaponry which failed to survive the transit from nautical vessal to unwilling airforce. Sirens blared from within the hull as instruments gave back impossible readings.
Then the voice of Eric Lehnsherr resounded within the mind of every crew member aboard.
”United States Vessel, you act in transgression of the laws of Genosha, Free and Soverign Republic. Be thankful you recieve the clemency your kind have so often denied our own. You have built these weapons to terrify and subdue, but we are no longer afraid, and you will find we have weapons of our own. Do not return.” Even as the words were projected across the vessel, it was in motion, Magneto, Exodus, and the vast submersible traversing the air away from the island nation, the vast bulk of the USS Florida steadily turning as it did, pointing away from the island, as if there was any doubt as to which direction they were being commanded to go.
”Inform Scott Summers of this, and provide my best wishes to him and his guest.” The continuation of Magneto’s thoughts were directed to Exodus, but were still felt by the crew within the Submarine as it was set back into the water. Let them know of the error they had committed.
Exodus’ thought reply was heard only by Magneto, however, before the ‘fire’ wreathed mutant arced away in the sky.
”By Your Will, Sire.”
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