WEAPON X

Part V: The Master of Magnetism

By Dino Pollard

The shock of the black, Mercedes Benz coming to a stop snaps Kitty Pryde out of her sleep. Her eyelids slide open, and she looks over to the driver. His name is Logan, or Wolverine. He’s supposedly the leader of a team she’s supposedly a part of. They only just met an hour ago, however. She brings her seat to an upright position and rubs her eyes.

“Where are we?” she asks.

“A diner,” replies Logan.

“Good, I’m starting to get a little hungry.”

“Let’s go grab a table, then,” he says. “He’s supposed to meet us inside anyway.”

“Okay,” she says. She opens the door, but before she steps out, she briefly recalls Logan’s last sentence. She turns to the driver side.

“What do you mea—?”

The driver’s seat is empty and the door is closed.

“You comin’ or what?”

She looks over her shoulder with a startle to see Logan standing behind her.

“Don’t do that,” she says.

“C’mon.”

She climbs out of the car and the two walk into a diner. They take a seat at a booth in the far corner of the restaurant, and Kitty cannot help but constantly throw her eyes from side to side. The past few days have been somewhat… strange to say the least. Jean falling into a coma, Storm and the X-Men turning to terrorism, and now, this Logan guy dragging her out of the mansion late at night. Now here they are at sitting at some diner off of the interstate.

“Okay, you mind telling me just what the hell is going on here?” she asks.

“Wait, I don’t feel like telling the story twice.”

“Why do you have to tell it twice?” she asks. “Who are we meeting here anyway?”

“See the guy who just walked in the door?” asks Logan. Kitty turns around in the booth and sees a tall, well-built bald black man with a goatee and a trench coat over a suit. He locks eyes with Kitty for a brief second, and looks past her to see Logan. He offers a slight grin and then walks over to the booth. Logan stands as he approaches and shakes the man’s hand.

“Hello Logan,” he says.

“Bishop,” says Logan. “Been awhile.”

“Too long.”

“Have a seat.”

Wolverine slides back into the booth and Bishop sits next to Kitty.

“Kitty Pryde, meet Special Agent Luther Bishop,” says Logan.

“Special Agent?” asks Kitty. “What are you a special agent of?”

“FBI,” replies Bishop. “Paranormal investigations.”

“Where’s Scully?” asks Kitty with a slight chuckle.

“Actually, her name’s Shard,” replies Bishop. “She’s at the hospital with this guy.”

He reaches into his coat and pulls out an envelope and drops it on the table. Logan opens it up and looks at the photographs. They depict a young man, early twenties, with short hair and strange eyes.

“His name’s Remy LeBeau, a world renowned thief,” says Bishop.

“How come I’ve never heard of him?” asks Logan.

“You have,” replies Bishop. “Gambit.”

“Ahh…” says Logan. “What’s he got to do with PI?”

“He has links to the Guild,” says Bishop. “Or had.”

“What do you mean had?”

“The Guild has been decimated,” says Bishop. “They’re all dead.”

“Okay, stop!” exclaims Kitty. “You guys are starting to give me a headache. Can someone please just tell me what the fuck is going on?!”

Logan reaches into his leather jacket and pulls out a cigar. He flips open a silver Zippo lighter and ignites the rolled tobacco leaves. He gives the cigar a few puffs, then removes it from his mouth and begins to speak.

“It’s like this,” he says. “That mutant strike force Xavier is heading up? Well, something’s not kosher. Xavier’s been possessed by someone who calls himself the Shadow King.”

“You’ve run into him, too?” asks Bishop.

“What do you mean?” asks Logan.

“Gambit claims that the Shadow King is responsible for the deaths of the Guild members,” replies Bishop. “And he also says that he’s the bastard’s son.”

“It gets better,” says Logan. “He’s possessed Xavier and I got a strong feeling he’s also got Fury, too. He’s labeled the X-Men as terrorists, and Weapon X is involved.”

“Impossible,” says Bishop.

“Nope.”

“Weapon X has been out of commission for years, Logan—remember?”

“Of course I remember.”

“Remember what?” asks Kitty.

“Weapon X is a top secret black ops program,” begins Logan. “I was recruited directly out of the Vietnam War. It was run by the Canadian government and it was Weapon X that did this to me.”

Three foot-long adamantium claws extend from between his knuckles, and Kitty is taken aback by the sight. With a thought, the claws quickly retract into his arm.

“We had to run a lot of hairy capers,” says Logan. “Assassinations, rebel uprisings, that sort of thing.”

“In the eighties, I had just started out with the FBI’s paranormal investigations unit at the time,” says Bishop. “Back then, mutants weren’t as widespread as they are now, and I was investigating a mutant sighting in upstate New York. It was then that I ran into Logan.”

“We were both after the same mutant,” says Logan. “Only difference is Bishop wanted him alive, and Weapon X wanted him dead. So we worked together. We found out why Weapon X wanted him dead—because he discovered some stuff about them we didn’t know.”

“How is Wyngarde anyway?” asks Bishop.

“Dead,” replies Logan. “Creed.”

“I thought he was dead.”

“So did Wyngarde.”

“So… Wyngarde was this mutant who Weapon X wanted dead?” asks Kitty.

“Yeah,” replies Logan. “He used to work for them. It was then I started to realize what I was really involved with. So, with the help of Bishop and Wyngarde, I got out. But I wanted to take Weapon X with me.”

“What do you mean?” asks Kitty.

“I blew up the complex,” replies Logan. “Killed everyone inside.”

“Exactly,” says Bishop. “So how is Weapon X involved now?”

“I ran into Creed awhile back and we tangled,” says Logan. “He said he was back with the project. And now there’s a replacement mutant strike force in place called Weapon X.”

“So what does this all mean?” asks Kitty.

“It means that somehow, this is all tied together,” says Bishop. “And it all seems to come back to this Shadow King character.”

“He’s pulling strings,” says Logan.

“If so, then Gambit seems like our one chance to stop him,” says Bishop. “The Shadow King hasn’t possessed or killed him yet, so maybe that’s because he can’t.”

“So you take us to Gambit, and we take him to Xavier,” says Kitty. “Seems like a good plan to m—”

“Hold on,” says Bishop. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ringing cell phone. He checks the number on the display before answering. “What’s up, Shard? What? How? Okay… yeah. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Bishop turns off the phone and places it back in his pocket.

“Is there any chance that we have a Plan B?” he asks.

“No, why?” asks Logan.

“Because Gambit’s dead.”

The ringing phone is silenced by the bald man with a thin moustache who answers it.

“Wraith,” he says. As he listens to the person on the other end of the line speak, his eyes begin to grow wide and he sits down in his chair.

“…can you run that by me again?”

Cannonball is sent ricocheting into the oncoming soldiers.

Northstar charges forward at breakneck speed. A metal door flies towards her at the same speed, which cleaves her body in two.

The flow of iron to Mirage’s brain is stopped, and she dies instantly.

Havok and Meltdown are the only two members of Weapon X who remain standing. Magneto hovers before them with his arms folded, and Meltdown simply smiles.

“How’d we do, boss?”

Magneto nods and then begins to hover towards the ceiling. It tears open as he approaches it, leaving Havok and Meltdown along with Stephen Lang.

“What do you mean Magneto’s escaped?!” exclaims Wraith. “He’s in a fucking coma, there’s no possible way he could have woken… up…”

Wraith is silenced as the floor of his office is torn open and Magneto rises up through the gaping hole.

“…I’ll call you back…”

He hangs up the phone and smiles awkwardly at the man who is in front of him.

“Well… it’s certainly nice to see you back on your feet again,” he says. “Now then… about…”

The paperclips on Wraith’s desk rise into the air and begin linking together. They quickly tighten around his throat like a noose and lift him into the air. He begins gagging for breath, when the stapler rises from his desk and hovers right before his eyes…

“This is nuts,” says Kitty as she follows Logan and Bishop towards the hospital entrance. “What are we gonna do now?”

“Dunno,” says Logan. “But obviously, the Shadow King got to Gambit before we could.”

“Embolism in the brain, sounds like the Shadow King’s territory,” says Bishop. “The only question is, what now?”

“Stop…” says Logan.

“What is it?” asks Bishop.

*SNIKT*

“Creed,” replies Logan.

“…what is that?” asks John.

“An alarm,” says Ali. “Do you think it could be Wolverine?”

“I dunno…”

“Maybe he’s come to bust us out, right?”

“Quiet…” says John. “I can hear the guards running and…”

“What?”

“…nothing, they just stopped in their tracks.”

*BRATATATATATATTATATATA*

“…I don’t think that sounds good…” says Ali. John hears the door beginning to strain and he steps back from it. He puts his arm in front of Ali and forces her behind him. The door flies off its hinges, and the walls seperating the X-Men from each other tear open. Magneto floats in the air before them.

“…can this day get any worse?” asks John.

Magneto concentrates and the X-Men all begin to cough and sneeze without warning. Once they stop, he lowers himself to the ground and removes his helmet.

“Your mutant powers are no longer inhibited,” says Magneto.

“How?” asks Monet. “What did you do?”

“Sentinels,” replies Magneto. Small, microscopic nanomachines that feed on your x-gene.”

“I thought Sentinels were giant robots or something,” says Scott.

“Prototypes,” says Magneto. “The final versions are nanomachines which enter a mutant’s body and then begin to feast on the x-gene. Luckily for you, the Sentinels had only recently entered your bodies. Given another day or do and your powers would be rendered permanently useless, and then your bodies would begin to deteriorate without the x-gene.”

“What’s going on here?” asks Hank. “Why are you helping us?”

“The Shadow King,” replies Magneto.

“What about him?” asks Hank.

“Years ago, I worked with Charles Xavier and Raven Darkholme in the mutant rights movement,” begins Magneto. “Xavier came in contact with a being of immense psionic energy called the Shadow King. He offered us power to rule over humans if we simply helped him with his cause. We refused, and that is when the problems started. Xavier lost his position at Harvard, my family was killed by mutant-hating humans. As a result of these things, the ideaologies of Xavier and myself frequently clashed. Raven could take no more and she left. Xavier and I parted ways, and it wasn’t until later that I discovered the Shadow King was slowly possessing him, bit by bit. He was also controlling me, forcing me to terrorist attacks. As a result, the government contacted the one man who knew me best, namely Xavier, to find a way to stop me. It was the Shadow King who accepted the offer and brought you all together.”

“So you didn’t mean to attack all those places?” asks Ali.

“How would terrorist attacks against major cities advance the mutant cause?” asks Magneto. “I’m not insane. The Shadow King incapacitated me rather than killing me because he felt I would be useful to him again in the future. He hadn’t counted on my own psychics rebuilding my mind in secret from my base of Avalon. I continued to feign the coma, however, and in that time, I was scanning the information on the computers about Weapon X, the X-Men, and Project: SENTINEL. Once I had compiled all the necessary information, I broke free.”

“So now what?” asks Kurt.

Magneto places his helmet back on his head.

“We have to stop the Shadow King before he can cause anymore trouble. In order to do that, we must cut him off from his host.”

“How do we do that?” asks Scott.

“Isn’t it obvious, Cyclops?” asks Magneto. “We have to kill Xavier.”