ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES

Part II

By Wesley Overhults

Oxford University, Earth-2

The Exiles and the X-Men both looked at each other as time suddenly wound back by a few seconds and then restarted itself thanks to the combined efforts of Jules and John, the two Timebrokers who called the shots for their teams. Sandman and Voght looked at each other knowingly, both of them formulating their own strategies in their heads. Both teams had the same goal even if they went about it in different ways. The X-Men seemed more . . . polished. Sandman looked at his own team and thought about all the missions they had completed. He thought about the fact that they had already lost Sister Grimm and wondered if these X-Men had lost any of their own teammates, be it through death or through other means. Could the Exiles really trust anyone anymore after what they had seen and what they had been through?

“So what the hell is this big, bad boogeyman that’s got everyone so scared?” wondered Daredevil aloud as time returned to normal around the Exiles and the X-Men.

Sandman had to admit he wasn’t well-versed on his mutant affairs. He only had sparse dealings with Charles Xavier and his X-Men so he didn’t know what enemy in their rogues gallery could be so powerful as to endanger the space-time continuum. He would soon get an answer to his unspoken question though as a glowing portal of energy suddenly appeared in front of them. Sandman couldn’t place the face of the figure that emerged from the portal but the stranger’s eyes glowed with a magenta-colored energy that matched the power welling up in his hands.

“That can’t be who I think it is,” realized Voght.

“Greetings, mutants,” said Bastion with a cruel grin spreading across his lips. “I am here for the mutant designated as Charles Xavier. Anyone that impedes my objective will be terminated with extreme prejudice.”

“Scatter!” shouted Voght before dissipating into vapor.

“What she said!” ordered Sandman even as Bastion unloaded the energy in his palms at the group of heroes. Wasp, Goblin, Pixie, and Sunfire went airborne, Sandman and Voght dissolved into their respective substances, and the rest of the Exiles and the X-Men avoided the incoming attack in their own ways.

“I stand corrected,” admitted Bastion, propulsion jets in his feet kicking him upwards to deal with the airborne threats first. “Not all of you are mutants. However, all of you will meet swift death at my hands.”

“Charming,” retorted Wasp as she tried to zap Bastion with a sting bolt. “Bet you say that to all the girls on a first date.”

“I have no idea who or what this thing is but he has already made an enemy of me,” declared Sunfire while bolts of white-hot plasma flew from his hands at Bastion. “That will prove to be a dire mistake.”

The mistake, however, was Sunfire’s. Bastion shrugged off the attack and raised his hand, blasting Sunfire out of the sky with all the effort one would use to swat an insect. He turned his attention to the three Exiles left in the sky and explosions bracketed his form courtesy of Goblin and his pumpkin bombs. The concussive force of the grenades did little to faze the mechanical monstrosity. If anything, the resistance only irritated him further. Bastion was the pinnacle of the Sentinel technology. Created by human supremacists in a future where Charles Xavier’s dream had become a reality, Bastion was programmed to return to the past and kill Xavier so that such a dream would never come to pass. He was quite literally a killing machine, a foe who would never tire or rest until his ultimate and only objective was complete.

“I got him,” assured Pixie before closing the gap between her and Bastion with a teleportation and stabbing him in the chest with one of her soul daggers.

“Interesting choice of weaponry but ineffective,” summarized Bastion, relishing the look on Pixie’s face when the girl realized her victim didn’t have a soul to steal. “Imminent threat classified as minimal.”

Pixie yelped as Bastion backhanded her away. He held up his hand to block Wasp’s sting blasts before firing an energy blast from it to halt her attack. Wasp zipped to dodge the blast but a second one clipped one of her wings and sent her spiraling to the ground. She righted her course and hovered while trying to figure out her next move.

“A paltry effort,” noted Bastion casually as bullets bounced off of his chest.

“I think I just pissed it off,” realized Sean Madrox, leveling the standard-issue firearm given to him upon becoming a member of the NYPD at Bastion and squeezing off another shot. “Let’s see how he likes this.” Sean stamped his foot on the ground and began creating duplicates that were also holding guns identical to his own. The duplicates fired in unison but it only drew Bastion’s attention to them.

“That’s my job,” admonished Daredevil. “Paige, gimme a boost up there.”

Husk nodded before grabbing Daredevil and flinging him towards Bastion in a variation of a Fastball Special though neither of the participants knew about the famous maneuver. Daredevil flipped in mid-air so that he was coming at Bastion feet first but Bastion sped towards him and met him. The murderous machine took both of Daredevil’s feet in his face and grabbed Johnny by the ankles before flinging him away unceremoniously. A cloud of gas appeared in front of Daredevil and Voght made sure that her new ally made a safe landing on the ground. Bastion’s eyes glowed before bolts of energy erupted from them and rained death from above on the ground-bound group of heroes. Sandman extended his arm and turned his hand into a giant shield to protect everyone from the energy blasts but Bastion was coming at him fast. It only took one punch to break through Sandman’s shield and knock him to the ground.

“Throw everything you’ve got at him,” ordered Sandman before sending a hardened slab of sandstone at Bastion.

The attack didn’t even make a dent in Bastion’s face but the fight was far from over. Husk was on Bastion in an instant, pounding away with her concrete fists. Bastion swatted her away and then let out multiple bolts of energy to take out the army of Madrox clones that awaited him. However, the impact only created more of them and those duplicates were all too eager to throw themselves at the killer robot.

“Exponential replication ability similar to that of James Madrox,” said Bastion. “Running new threat assessment to compensate for new data.”

He almost screamed with pain as Rogue jumped onto his back and administered her toxic touch. Lines of code and data scrolled behind his eyes as he figured out how to counteract the X-Man’s powers with frightening speed and precision. There was only one choice. As the humans were fond of saying, if you couldn’t beat them then you could join them. Yes, that was an apt idiom to use in this case.

“I think you’re taking him down,” realized Marrow.

“You are not the only one with a touch-based attack,” retorted Bastion before a tentacle made of wires and nanotech erupted from his back and speared Rogue right through the chest.

The Exiles and the X-Men could only gape in horror as they realized that wasn’t the worst part of Bastion’s attack. Rogue screamed and recoiled from her foe, sound escaping the mute X-Man’s lips for perhaps the first time since her transformation at the hands of Apocalypse. Rogue’s skin took on a sliver coating as the nanotech wormed its way through her body and began converting her into a Prime Sentinel. Her hair became a tangled mass of wires and circuitry replaced her veins.

“What in God’s name is that thing doing to her?” questioned Sandman.

“She’s a Prime Sentinel now,” explained Voght. “Nobody touch her.”

“That’s gonna be a problem, ma’am,” warned Sean as Rogue suddenly sprang at her former teammates once her transformation was complete.

Sandman let out a stream of sand that battered Rogue to the ground but he knew they had worse problems to deal with. If Bastion could do that to Rogue then he could do it to any one of them. Unless they all wanted to become Prime Sentinels, they couldn’t afford to just throw themselves at Bastion so recklessly. They needed a new game plan and they needed it quickly.

“Your replication ability will serve my cause well,” decided Bastion before a tentacle of nanotech shot towards Sean Madrox. “Assuming, of course, that you live through the conversion process. I’ve calculated the probabilities on using the Prime Sentinel technology on mutants and the odds are less than favorable for your survival, your friend’s successful conversion notwithstanding.”

“Tommy!” called out Voght.

Speed nodded and focused his attention on the tentacle. In a matter of seconds, the tentacle exploded thanks to having its molecules sped up by the youngest member of the X-Men. Speed wasn’t done yet though. He started running circles around Bastion to confuse him but kept his focus on the killer robot. Without warning, parts of Bastion began to explode with frightening regularity. Bastion recalculated his attack plan. Even amidst the chaos, he focused on Speed’s movements. With enough velocity to match his opponent’s, Bastion sent out a nanotech tentacle that speared Speed through his right side and stopped him dead in his tracks. The tentacle administered the nanotech virus that would convert Speed into a Prime Sentinel or perhaps even kill him.

“We have to pull back,” decided Sandman. “We’ve lost track of Xavier and he’s our main focus. We can’t forget about the mission.”

“We’re not leaving anyone behind,” said Wasp even as she used her sting blasts to keep Rogue at bay. “It’s their mission too.”

“No, he’s right,” realized Voght. “Some of us have to hold the line here to keep Bastion from getting to Charles while the rest of us make sure he’s not in any other danger.”

“Teleporter gets us there quicker,” reminded Sandman. “Voght, right? You take the clone guy, Daredevil, and the bone girl with you. They’re only good with hand-to-hand combat and that’s useless against this thing.”

“I’m not used to taking orders,” stated Voght.

“At this point I don’t give a damn,” retorted Sandman. “We’ve got enough problems on our hands without arguing. Just do it!”

Charles Xavier was frightened. More accurately, he was the most frightened he had ever been in his entire life. It wasn’t enough that all these strangers showed up out of nowhere and proceeded to fight over him but now there was that . . . thing after him. It was all too much. He wasn’t anything special. Yes, he had special abilities that made him different from most people but aside from that he wasn’t anything special or important. All he wanted to do was finish his studies and spend the rest of his life with Moira.

“Charles?” questioned Moira as they pressed themselves against the side of one of the dorm buildings and tried to catch their breaths. “What in tha name o’ Heaven was all that?”

“I have no idea,” rasped Charles in between breaths. “We always talked about genetic mutation but to see the violence it could cause . . .”

“It doesn’t always cause violence, Charles,” said Voght as she appeared out of the cloud of vapor created by her teleportation. “I know you don’t know me yet, Charles, but my name is Amelia Voght. I’m from a different time, a different reality. My friends and I were brought here to stop that thing from taking your life. You have a dream, Charles, and that dream needs to be shared with the world.”

“My only dream right now is to marry the woman I love,” declared Charles, taking Moira’s hand in his. “What dream is more important than that?”

“Mutants are not a theory, Charles,” explained Voght. “You and I know that. More of us will be born in the coming years and it’s up to you to help teach the humans that they have nothing to fear from the mutant race.”

“What does she mean, Charles?” asked Moira skeptically.

He looked at her and realized that this moment was always coming. Yes, he wanted it to be under happier circumstances but he couldn’t marry Moira until he told her of the mutant powers he had kept a secret from everyone, including her. It wasn’t fair to ask her to marry him while still keeping secrets from her and Charles knew that.

“I am one, Moira,” he said after a moment of silence. “I’ve never told anyone until now but I’m a telepath. I can hear the thoughts of everyone around me. I developed my power during my adolescence and it’s taken me years of practice to control.”

“Charles, what’re ye sayin’?” questioned Moira. “Are ye telling me that ye know what I’m thinking all the time? Are ye telling me that ye could put thoughts in someone’s head, in my head?”

“Moira, no,” answered Charles. “I would never do that to another human being, least of all to you. That’s a gross violation of privacy, one I would never commit.”

“Hate to break up the soap opera but the others won’t keep that thing busy for long,” reminded Daredevil. “I don’t know what it did to your two teammates but I know why. It turned them into monsters to keep our hands full while it goes after Xavier.”

“He’s right,” agreed Marrow. “We gotta get these two outta here until we figure out what to do next.”

The group of mutants didn’t have time to think up such a plan. As Daredevil predicted, Bastion dropped from the sky in a fury of blazing magenta energy. Voght instantly moved to shield both Xavier and Moira. Marrow and Daredevil both launched their projectile weapons at Bastion but they proved ineffective against him.

“You bring sticks against me?” questioned Bastion with a smirk forming on his lips. “How you mutants think to supplant humanity as the dominant species is beyond me if you employ such a primitive arsenal.”

Marrow, Daredevil, and Sean Madrox were swept aside without a second thought thanks to a wave of energy from Bastion’s hand. Bastion calmly landed, his eyes devoid of any shred of emotion as he approached Voght and the two students she protected.

“I’m not going to let you get hurt Charles,” stated Voght defiantly.

“Amelia Voght, mutant ability of transubstantiation,” noted Bastion. “I’m getting interesting energy signatures from you, Miss Voght. Like the others who stand in my way, you are not of this reality.”

“Neither are you,” retorted Voght before transforming into vapor and pouring herself into Bastion’s body.

Bastion recoiled and tried to use the nanotech in his body to combat the foreign substance that was Voght as it invaded his body. Charles and Moira watched as Bastion flailed spastically before finally coughing up Voght’s gaseous form. The vapor slithered away from Bastion before reforming into flesh and blood. The attack left Bastion dazed enough for Marrow and Daredevil to strike up close. Both of them got a couple shots in until Bastion swatted them away. This gave Sean Madrox time to create an army of clones that swarmed Bastion, piling on top of him and raining down blows as fast and hard as they could. Bastion let out a roar of frustration and unleashed a pulse of energy that threw all the Madrox clones off of him.

“Now you’ve managed to anger me,” snarled Bastion. “To think that such an uproar could be caused by one, insignificant person. Not even someone with my intellect could understand such a concept.”

“All of us are ready to die to protect that man,” retorted Voght. “We believe in him and his dream. I wouldn’t expect some heartless machine to understand anything about that.”

“These two are even more annoying when they’re enemies,” muttered Sunfire as a wall of fire kept Rogue from touching him and possibly infecting him with the nanotech virus that turned her into a Prime Sentinel.

The rest of the group was having a difficult time dealing with Speed. Though he was a Prime Sentinel, Tommy still retained some of his mutant powers. Since the nanotech virus was designed only for humans and never mutants, the full conversion was taking longer.

“You need to kill me,” rasped Speed as he tried to slow himself down long enough for the X-Men and the Exiles to destroy him. “Please, you need to kill me before I hurt someone.”

“What the hell do you think we’re trying to do?” asked Sandman in return. “Cut us some slack, kid.”

Speed stood still long enough for Sandman to reach out with an elongated arm of sand and pin him to the ground. The sand poured into Speed’s newly mechanical body and began to clog the moving parts in it. Speed cried out in pain, still human enough to feel the life slip from his body. The sand seeped into every pore of his body, slowing the gears inside to a halt. Sandman stared into the young X-Man’s eyes and then closed his before letting all the sand in Speed’s body explode outward, blowing his body into nothing but shrapnel. Sandman cut off his own sandy arm before the nanotech virus in Speed’s body could spread back to him.

“You killed him,” realized Wasp in disbelief.

“Take the other one down by any means necessary,” ordered Sandman. “These two are only wasting our time. Our real priority is protecting Charles Xavier.”

“I think I’m starting to dislike you a little less,” admitted Sunfire before launching the hottest burst of plasma he could muster at Rogue.

Sunfire’s attack washed over Rogue like a wave. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound escaped her lips. Every circuit in her body was instantly flash-fried, leaving her a lifeless husk of metal. Wasp bit her lip hard and glared at Sandman. This wasn’t right. It didn’t matter that the two people in question were slowly turning into merciless killing machines, they didn’t deserve such a swift and violent death. What was this job turning them into? What price wouldn’t they be willing to pay to go home?

“Xavier couldn’t have gotten far,” realized Sandman. “You X-Men people have radios, right? Use them and find him before that thing kills him and all of us are screwed.”

“Some of us are already,” muttered Wasp under her breath.

She noticed that Goblin was looking at her and she could tell he felt the same way she did about what they were doing. It was one thing to complete these missions because they had no choice over what those missions were. They did have a choice about the tactics they used and those tactics were becoming increasingly violent ever since they lost Nico. Kate didn’t know how much longer this team could last unless someone could dig them out of the hole they had created for themselves.

“You people greatly vex me,” stated Bastion before blowing away the wall of Madrox clones. “Why can you not accept what is inevitable? You people are a mistake. You are genetic aberrations that must be wiped from the face of this planet. I have no compassion for you, no empathy for you. You cannot reason with me. Your end as a race has come. Accept it.”

“Get behind me, Moira,” ordered Charles as he put out his arm to shield his girlfriend from whatever may come. “This thing is here to end my life, not yours. I refuse to be worth all this trouble.”

“Finally, one of you makes sense,” sneered Bastion, standing before the man he was created solely to destroy.

“Ask yourself this, monster,” dared Charles. “When my life is at an end and you hold my lifeless body in your hands, what then? When you have accomplished the goal you claim to be created for, what meaning will your life have?”

“I’m not a living creature,” retorted Bastion. “I’m a machine. You try to appeal to my emotions? I have none, I’ve never had them, and I never will. I was created to destroy you, to destroy all mutants. I will ponder on my future only when my programming is fully complete.”

“If you are from the future as are these other people then perhaps my life has no meaning,” decided Charles. “Perhaps there are many futures and in some of those futures I accomplish this dream of which you speak. Perhaps this isn’t meant to be one of those futures. Do your worst, monster. I am not afraid to die.”

“It pains me that I have to kill the smartest mutant I’ve ever met,” said Bastion, raising his hand to deliver the killing stroke with a blast of energy. “If I possessed emotions, I would have a moment of doubt. Fortunately, I have no emotions or doubts.”

Charles Xavier closed his eyes and waited. He felt the heat from the plasma as the energy blast surged towards him. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to be cursed with a power that let him invade the privacy of others. He didn’t want any ability that made the love of his life unsure whether she could trust him or not. He didn’t want to be a leader of a generation, much less a generation of outcasts and misfits that he wasn’t even fully sure existed at all. Mutants only bred hysteria and violence. If this was how humanity responded to mutants’ existence, maybe it was better to help keep them a secret. Maybe dying was the best way he could help the mutant race.

“No!”

Everything happened so fast and yet it seemed as if things were moving in slow motion. Moira Kinross shoved Charles Xavier out of the way moments before the energy blast could strike him. However, in saving the man she loved, Moira also put herself in the line of fire. The energy bolt struck her down as callously and as carelessly as the being who created it. She collapsed from the impact even as Charles rushed to her side.

“It should’ve been me,” he whispered to her. “Why did you save me, Moira? Why?”

“Because ye have more of a future than I do, Charles,” rasped Moira, her breath shallow and slowing down with every gasp. “Yer life was worth more than mine.”

“Stay with me,” pleaded Charles. “I need you. Please, Moira.”

“Humans are so illogical,” decided Bastion, raising his glowing had to strike again. “I almost pity the fact that my prime directive is to protect them.”

“X-Men, take him down,” ordered Voght.

“What she said,” agreed Sandman as the rest of the remaining X-Men and the Exiles arrived on the scene.

The ten time-tossed heroes attacked as one. They threw everything they had at Bastion and the killing machine took it in stride. Blasts of energy bounced off his armored body. Normally lethal blows didn’t leave a mark on him. Bastion battered the Exiles and the X-Men aside, throwing them around like the ragdolls they were to him. Their lives meant nothing. Their powers meant nothing. They were just obstacles in his way, obstacles he would destroy because the only thing that mattered was achieving his ultimate goal. He could cut them down one at a time or in droves. It made no real difference to him. The end result would be the same no matter what they did.

“We’re not even making a scratch on him,” realized Voght. “The only attack that seemed to work was when I got inside his body but we need something thicker than gas.”

“You go in first, I’ll be behind you,” ordered Sandman. “Johnny, help the lady make us a hole.”

Daredevil nodded as Voght transformed her body into vapor and once again poured herself into Bastion. The fearless Exile took a run at Bastion and sprang into the air, twisting his body and landing on Bastion’s back.

“Open wide, scumbag,” he jeered as he grabbed Bastion’s mouth and pried it open, getting some assistance from Voght.

It was the opening that Sandman needed to ram a blast of sand straight down Bastion’s throat. Baker continued pouring on the attack, saturating Bastion’s body with sand the same way he had done to Speed when the former X-Man was infected with the Prime Sentinel virus. Bastion’s eyes sparked with electricity as sand began to ooze from every crack and crevice in his mechanical body. In only a few short seconds, Bastion exploded and sent a shower of sand and shrapnel in all directions. Sandman immediately cut off the stream of sand as he had done before, just in case Bastion attempted to administer his nanotech virus like he had done to the two X-Men.

“Sunfire, liquefy that thing before it has a chance to implement any kind of reconstruction program,” ordered Voght.

“My pleasure,” declared Sunfire before ionizing every scrap of metal that once made up Bastion’s body, burning all of the pieces to scrap so that he couldn’t reform himself.

“What about him?” inquired Pixie, casting a forlorn gaze at the broken man that was once Charles Xavier.

“Tallus says mission complete,” stated Sandman. “Our mission was to keep Xavier safe and that’s what we did.”

“It was our mission,” corrected Voght. “If you had let us handle this ourselves, Moira would still be alive.”

“Right, because it was two of my guys that got turned into Prime Sentinels,” retorted Sandman. “Hey wait, it was two of your guys wasn’t it? My bad.”

Voght and Sandman stared daggers at each other as their respective teams gathered around them and prepared for another face off. The two leaders continued to stare one another down even as they began to fade out of existence.

“This isn’t over,” promised Voght. “The next time I see you and your team, we’re going to settle this.”

“We’ll be waiting,” assured Sandman.

The two teams moved on from the world they helped save, or at least they tried to save. They didn’t know how successful they were. They didn’t know the drastically different course this world would take from the ones they knew and loved. The X-Men and the Exiles left behind a broken man in the form of Charles Xavier. With the woman he loved dead in his arms, Xavier would never have the dream of peaceful co-existence between mutants and humans. Instead, he would develop a very different dream.

“Is this what your kind does?” questioned Xavier, staring at the dead body of Moira Kinross. “They create weapons of war and kill anything beautiful in the world. They fear everything they don’t understand and they destroy what they fear. So be it then, I disavow myself of the human race. I am a mutant, the first of a new race. We will become better than this. We will become all that was once good about humanity and we will do it without you. For the mutant race to live, the human race must perish and I will make sure that we are the ones who inherit this world.”

Charles Xavier made a solemn vow that night. He vowed that humanity’s days were numbered. Mutants were growing in population every year. They would supplant the human race one day and Xavier would make sure of that. Humanity’s time was over. It was time for mutants to become the dominant species of this world and Xavier would be their leader.

Next Issue: A day off for the Exiles isn’t really a day off.