Sinister’s secret lab:
Mr. Sinister is frantically trying to grow Moira clone VII with Velocidad speed growth. He needs a safepoint and needs to be out of here! He tries to convince himself that he can work with the current situation. Shaw can be played and Storm is always going to be a problem… He can handle it! He has to! He is not going back to bloody Judgment Day!
The clone is activated, but there is no data waiting for him, meaning this is the first iteration of this Moira cycle. He hopes this will work. He could really do without being trapped in the Pit forever.
He walks through a door.
Charles Xavier thinks (though probably not now), wondering if people are suspicious of him. He hopes so. After all, he has done much to be suspicious of. It is one of his ways of protecting everyone. People should be suspicious of him.
Cable and X-Force are in the ruins of the Grove, looking at the bodies of Hope, Exodus, Emma Frost and Xavier. Cable carefully lifts his daughter’s corpse. He carries her outside, where the rest of the Five and a huge crowd of mutants are waiting, as he brings the body to Arbor Magna.
Xavier explains he is an idealist whom experience has taught to be practical. It’s hard to hold onto idealism when he knows what people really think about mutants, about him.
They talk about Xavier’s dream. Not Xavier’s sensible and achievable policy or even Xavier’s five-year-plan. It’s a dream. He did not form the X-Men to fulfil the dream. He created them to ensure there was a world where the dream could come true. Yes, “sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them” but protect it from whom?
The rest of the Five, the Stepford Cuckoos, Dr. Nemesis, Cable, Synch and Mimic have gathered in Arbor Magna. While the other members of the Five can be replaced, Hope (and whatever she brings to the resurrection process) was always unique. It is hoped that either of the power copiers can at least help to resurrect her by synching with Hope’s dead body. Mimic breaks under the pressure of expectation. He runs away, apologizing. Synch calmly announces he will do it. When he opens the body bag, Dr. Nemesis tells him he doesn’t have to do that. Synch explains it makes him feel closer… he needs to be as close to her as he can. When he sees the disfigured corpse, he decides they have to bring her back. They can’t leave her like this.
Xaver thinks he is a father to many. In turn, he has had many fathers. They were each, in their own way, terrible. Even the monster who killed him had a hand in his upbringing, in a failed, foolish attempt to buy himself immortality.
Scott and he share Sinister as a meddling foster parent. They never talked about it, which is so like them both.
He wished not to become like any of his terrible fathers and succeeded. He became a terrible father in his own way. He tries to dream a world where terrible fathers are gone, but it is, of course, just a dream.
The Five with Synch do their thing. Now they stand in front of an unmoving egg. A moment later, Hope bursts out.
Cable covers her with a blanket and she asks what happened. Sinister, is Synch’s reply.
A little later, Exodus, Emma and Charles are also resurrected.
Does Sinister still breathe the same air as actual mutants? Exodus asks acidly. For now, Xaiver replies. The Council is leading the X-Men to him. Oh good, if they hurry, they can get a little revenge, Emma adds. It has such an ugly reputation, but sometimes it just hits the spot!
“To me my X-Men.” See what that implies? They are his. So, he chose who to call.
The X-Men, several X-Force members, Cable, Rogue, Forge, Angel and the other council members have reached a cordoned-off area in Alaska, which seems to consist of a huge hole in the ground.
Cyclops gives the order to take Sinister alive if they can. The X-Men will take the lead, the Council members will stay behind for the time being. It may be a trap. Storm corrects him, it will be a trap. He agrees, and they will close it around his scrawny neck. Kate asks Destiny if she is sure he is here. Nightcrawler adds, the question is whether she is more or less sure than about the Celestial not exploding. Destiny calmy chides him for his sarcasm and explains Nathaniel has returned to an old lair to attempt an escape.
Cyclops orders deployment. Kurt is the only council member to come along. As they jump downward, Jean Grey asks what this place is. She was dead at the time, Cyclops replies. Sinister has a city under Alaska. They destroyed it when they were the Phoenix Five.
As they are about to land, he guesses they are going to do it again. They look at the remains of Sinister’s once proud city.
Xavier thinks that, between his powers and Cerebro, he could have chosen anyone. The Morlocks? He left them in their tunnels. He ignored so many others who he couldn’t help, not yet.
Sinister’s Shaw batteries are only 94 percent charged. While he waits, he deploys Cyclops/ Eye Boy chimeras at the X-Men to slow them down.
Who did he choose? Bobby, an ocean of untapped talent. Beast, a mutant gift chained to a genius that exceeded Xavier’s. Warren, a mutant gift married to wealth that exceeded Xavier’s. Jean, a prodigy beyond imagining, and Scott who had already been carved into what a team so badly needs.
Cyclops calls the council members when the chimeras attack. This has escalated. They need support. At last, Shaw smirks.
Then later when he expanded the ranks: a goddess with the honed skill of a thief, a trained circus acrobat, a former Interpol agent and, of course, let us not forget the black ops killer. Even Kitty wasn’t the girl next door, unless the girl next door is a prodigious hacker.
He gathered people to do a job: protect a world that hates and fears them. In what way do they do that? Mostly by fighting other mutants.
The council members join the fray against more and different chimeras. Jean senses Mr. Sinister and sends Nightcrawler to those coordinates, only to find a decoy brain.
Shaw batteries are loaded 98 percent. He sends out the Proteuses.
Xavier had a son who could have destroyed the world with a runaway thought. Moira’s son was a serial killer who could carve reality. When Jean Grey lost control, a planet burned. And these are the weaknesses of character and fortune, not actively planned malice. He has looked at Sinister across the Quiet Council and shuddered thinking what he would choose to do if he had complete reign, and how he wished they hadn’t needed him to make their paradise.
Finally, the Shaw batteries are fully loaded, and Sinister’s flight is ready for launch. Running to his plane Sinister shouts,
Krakoa wasn’t made by them. It was made by him! Moira, Magneto! Other people whose name doesn’t start with an M. Apocalypse! His fancy name kind of looks like an M if you squint. As the plane starts, he shouts, every time they cheat death, say a prayer to Mr. Sinister!
Xaiver thinks this is the awful truth. When a child comes out to bigoted parents, it destroys lives. When Magneto came out as a mutant, he killed a whole town in his grief. Being a mutant shares traits with other persecuted groups, but it is different in one way: they are dangerous!
Nearby Hope, Exodus, Emma and Xavier calmly stand. Hope takes Exodus’ hand and borrows his power. Together, their telekinesis brings down the jet. The four walk calmly toward Sinister, who sits in the rubble.
Mutants are dangerous. Humans are right to be frightened. Imagine asking those who Magneto tore apart in his grief for little Anna, whether mutants should be feared. He believes there were mutant corpses in that town too.
They hurt their own. They hurt everyone. If there isn’t someone to stop that. The X-Men are born of fear of their worst potential and are a first line of defense, ensuring they do not kill themselves. It has worked but there is one key question that should be asked: Why was he so worried about the potential of mutants with grandiose powers. He has a mirror. He looked in it.
Mr. Sinister orders his clone army to attack them. Xavier telepathically makes them kill each other. Emma kicks Sinister in the face. Xavier calmly informs him he doesn’t need Irene’s gift to guess what happens next…
Xavier thinks, he often thinks how lucky it is that he was given his gifts and Erik the gift of magnetism. If their places were switched, and Erik had had hid gifts when he was at hist worst, there would be no humanity today. If he wanted to, he could place a psychic trigger in every mind within a decade perhaps. One day, he could have made them all kill themselves. And that’s if he saw the world as Erik did then. Imagine if he was simply corrupt!
Cable leads Sinister past a jeering, furious crowd to the Grove. He is thrown to the ground in the center. Emma walks towards him.
Xavier thinks Emma believes he is manipulating the Council, and she is right, but she also knows he could have done so in a far more brutal direct and immoral way. As could she. The entire world could follow their whims, and sometimes he wonders whether he is wrong not to do that.
He has a secret. There will never be a nuclear war. If the Doomsday Clock ever reached midnight, all those war mongers’ hands would hover above the red button and find themselves incapable of pressing it. If one tried to bypass that, those who are trained to fire the missile would also stop in their tracks. He put a psychic block there to save the world from themselves. Like he did the X-Men.
Kakoa’s tentacles grab the screaming Sinister and drag him into the Pit.
Emma wishes they had an even harsher punishment for Sinister. Xaiver retorts that is beneath them. He was a sickness and his presence made them unwell too. This is a wake-up call. They must be better in the future. They cannot act like they have. A useful monster is still a monster. Sinister is gone. Let them make a better, kinder Krakoa. Kurt happily agrees.
The Council breaks up and Destiny tells Mystique they need to leave immediately.
Xavier enters his quarters and thinks to himself, people should be afraid of him. Mutants have been victims, but he is not. He has never been a victim. He chooses to let them persecute him, because the alternative would be the death of them all. He is a martyr. So he makes people suspicious of him, so they are watching him, in case he turns to even shadowier paths. He hopes he has succeeded. He is far from a perfect person, but they should all wake up every morning and be grateful that his power and skills are not in the hand of one who is even slightly worse than him…
Xavier takes off the Cerebro helmet and look into a mirror. He smirks at the red diamond on his forehead…
It would be a disaster neither species could survive…
