THE END OF THE WORLD

Part V: An Ending…

By Jason Kenney

The pulse fanned out across the Earth. Lights went out, engines stopped, life support shut off, televisions went black; the world was in the dark.

“Magneto is triumphant!” shouted Cargill as power went down across Washington D.C.

The ship pinning Rogue and Joseph in the marble steps lifted and flew into the Reflecting Pool as Joseph shot out of the hole it had made and into the air, chasing after his father. Magneto shot back down through the atmosphere and the two passed each other, Joseph turning to follow his father, who stopped in his original spot above the Reflecting Pool.

Magneto held up a hand above his head and deflected the oncoming magnetic pulse Joseph had shot at him from above. Joseph flew at Magneto, who simply sidestepped and allowed his son to pass and crash into the Reflecting Pool.

{Joseph,} Joseph heard in his mind. Xavier was reaching out. {You are fighting with too much rage, you must think straight if you are to beat…}

Joseph shot out of the Reflecting Pool and at Magneto again, who didn’t have a chance to move this time. Magneto tossed the boy off to the side and clenched his fists.

“I do not have time for this, boy!” shouted Magneto as he tried to manipulate electromagnetic pulses in Joseph’s body to no avail.

Joseph was stronger in his powers. But he did not know how to use them. Magneto knew how to use his powers. And use them he would, to their fullest.

He found the one he once called friend, the one whose mind was used to bring him back. Magneto lowered his head for a second, as if to apologize for what he was about to do.

Xavier felt it as a tingle first, not unlike when one would try and scan his mind for his thoughts. Then he realized what was going on as he looked in Magneto’s mind, but he was too late.

The body runs on electrical pulses and synapses, the mind thinks the body to move, pulses go out, the body moves. The thought process also uses electrical pulses; the mind’s a little powerhouse.

Magneto knew this. And, after all the time he spent in Xavier’s head, he knew what pulses to play with to Xavier’s mind do certain things.

So, for a second, before Xavier could react and toss his own ideas in Magneto’s mind to make him stop, Magneto controlled Xavier, and a second was all he needed to put Joseph to sleep.

Maggott and Gabrielle Haller grabbed their heads in pain as Wolverine could only look on. He knew the source of the pain, he knew its smell, but he couldn’t stop it.

Yet.

The two clutching their heads fell to the ground as beautiful, painless unconsciousness came to them, leaving Wolverine standing alone in the room, bone claws extended, ready.

“Let’s go!” shouted Wolverine, his voice echoing through the room, then silence for a moment, then two.

A laugh, short and loud, sounded and echoed. One simple “ha.”

{Very well,} said a voice in Wolverine’s head. {But…}

“…Let’s do this face to face,” finished the voice as a door opened and Exodus stepped into the room. “My Lord may have spared you your life before, X-Man, but I will not be so generous.”

“You talk too much,” said Wolverine a split second before he was in the air.

Rogue was the first to see him falling from the sky. Actually, she was the only one other than Professor Charles Xavier to see him since the other X-Men were in the middle of fighting the Acolytes.

She was in the air as soon as she saw him, paying no attention to the other man lowering from the sky a little more orderly than Joseph was. The other man should have concerned her more, but all she saw was Joseph falling.

She didn’t notice Magneto hovering before Xavier.

“Is this what your dream has come to, Charles?” asked Magneto, looking down to the man who sat on the sidewalk beside the Reflecting Pool. “Are you fighting for your dream, or to protect it from reality?”

“You’re mad, Erik,” said Xavier as he looked into the eyes of his one-time friend.

“Mad?” said Magneto with a smirk. “Mad, yes, but not in the sense you mean. Mad at the world. Furious at the world, yes. I am mad, Charles, I am angry and frustrated that the world has not changed since I last tread on it.”

“Since you last terrorized it,” Xavier spat back.

Magneto’s smile widened. He lifted himself into the air and pulled Xavier off the ground with his powers, both men settling above the Reflecting Pool facing each other.

“Look around you, Charles,” said Magneto with a sweeping gesture. “See the darkness that blankets the world? See the helplessness? That is reality, the reality of what I can truly do to them, and it only terrorizes because they do not understand.”

“People died in that grand gesture of ‘reality’…”

“All the more real then, isn’t it? It needs to be real, Charles, or they lose respect for the dream one might hold. That is why yours is dying, if not dead, Charles. You have not taken the measures to show them…”

“Measures?” Xavier smirked a bit at that. “Your measures scare them because they are those of a dictator. They are too extreme…”

“My measures are too extreme?” Magneto allowed himself a smirk and shook his head. “YOURS are too soft! Look around you, Charles, look at the world today. Look at your dream. How long have you been fighting for that, Charles? How many nights have you been kept from sleep because you hope that one day we will all live together peacefully? And where has that dream gotten you, Charles, where has it gotten the world?”

“Look at them, Charles.” Magneto gestured to the crowd that watched the scenes of Magneto and Xavier above the pool and of the Acolyte and X-Men battle as Xavier turned his head away, not wanting to face the truth. Magneto glared at his one-time friend. “LOOK AT THEM!” he screamed, manipulating the electrical pulses in Xavier’s body and forcing his head to turn so he could see the crowd. “Look at their fear, Charles, look at their hatred. Tell them your dream, cry to them, and see if they will care any more for you afterwards than they do now.”

“You can’t expect them to change overnight,” said Xavier through clenched teeth.

“Why must we continue to suffer for their ignorance?” shouted Magneto, leaning into Xavier’s face. “Their ignorance drove me from this planet. Their ignorance drove me to create Avalon. Their ignorance attacked my safe haven for what they feared. Their ignorance forced my hand. Their ignorance sent you into my home, MY HOME, Charles, to attack me. Their ignorance brought pain to Logan. Their ignorance brought you to incapacitate me. Their ignorance brought forth Onslaught. Their ignorance brought on Zero Tolerance. Haven’t we suffered long enough for their ignorance, Charles? When will you admit to that?”

Magneto straightened up and hung his head for a moment, letting the words sink into his old friend.

“Why would they want your dream, Charles,” he continued, looking up and into Xavier’s eyes, “when they have dreams of their own?”

“People can change,” said Xavier, returning the look into Magneto’s eyes.

“People are stubborn, Charles,” replied Magneto with a smirk. “They can change only if they are forced to.”

“And Cortez,” said Xavier, looking down at the body that lay in the middle of the Reflecting Pool. “Did Cortez conform to your forced changes?”

“You’re looking at him right now, Charles,” said Magneto with a smug voice. “Does he look like he conformed to my forced changes?”

Xavier closed his eyes as he understood what Magneto meant.

“You have no heart…”

“I have a heart, old friend, but it is not for my enemies. It is for my brothers and sisters who have suffered like I in this world that will not accept them. I tried to give them a place to turn, Charles, a place where they could live in peace.”

“And prepare to return to this world as conquerors,” said Xavier, returning his look to Magneto’s face. “You took them to Avalon with the full intent of returning one day.”

“One day,” said Magneto, “when the world was ready, we would have returned.”

“Ready? Ready for what? To accept you as their leader, as their master?”

“When the world was ready to face the truth. But, now the world has shown it cannot find the truth on its own, it must be forced to see.”

“By what? By magic tricks and shows of grandeur? In order to lift a man up, one must first stoop to reach him.”

“And that is exactly what I have done! I will enlighten them by stooping to their level, by using their language, by force!”

“You rationalize your actions, you twist words and pull on their meaning to give you what you feel is truth.”

“I do not need armchair psychology from a man who follows a dead dream.” Magneto looked again to the crowd and Xavier followed his gaze. “Look at them, Charles, look at how they look on us with awe and wonder.”

“It is fear, Erik.”

“Not Erik, Charles,” said Magneto, shaking his head.

“Why not Erik? Does giving you a name make you one of them? You were born of human parents. You were born and given a name by them. Is this what they would have wanted of their son, hatred and fury? That is what killed them, Erik, that is what took them from you.”

“NO!” shouted Magneto, suddenly turning and grabbing Xavier’s collar. “A murderer took them from me, a madman killed them! A insane waste of flesh! A human!”

“A human who felt he was fit to lead a ‘master race.’ A madman who felt he was above other mortals, and should lead them.”

Magneto growled with rage and lifted higher into the sky, still holding Xavier. Higher into the sky. The air thinned, Xavier gasped.

{I know you’re in my head,} thought Magneto, and he was right. {My words may not travel well through the thin air here, but my thoughts are clear. Gasp for air, Charles! Feel it? That is your dream. Feel how thin it is, how you try so hard to get enough to keep you going, but it just isn’t there? This is where you are in your dream, Charles. The air up here, this is your dream. And if you cannot get enough to keep you going, how can you have others partake of it?}

Lack of oxygen began to get to Xavier, and he started to black out.

{Unlike you, I am not an optimist, Charles, I am a realist. You try to inhale deep breaths, hoping to get enough. I knew I was coming here and took a deep breath ahead of time, realizing I couldn’t breath up here. Mankind is a pessimist, an extreme realist, always taking gulps of air when it can, so when it enters others’ worlds, others’ dreams, it can keep ahold of its own, so while the other dream runs out of air, it will have its own to hold onto, and will use it to defeat the other dreams. They will defeat your dream the first chance they get. My ‘too extreme’ measures force them to gasp for air, to swallow my dream and release their foolish ones.}

{Erik…} thought Xavier as he drifted closer to darkness. {They only need hope… to become… optimistic.}

{And look where hope got you,} thought Magneto, as Xavier’s world went black.

Wolverine fell to the ground just as quickly as he had leapt form it, a psychic blast from Exodus’ eyes knocking him down.

“I do hope you put up a better fight than that in the long run,” said Exodus, a smirk on his face, “if I allow a long run.”

Wolverine stood up and ready, but paced himself, not advancing on Exodus, unsure of how to make his next move.

“What have you done to them?” asked Logan, stalling.

“Them?” Exodus glanced to the fallen bodies of Gaby and Maggott. “They are simply asleep.” He looked back and Wolverine with a wicked grin. “For now.”

“Why not me too?”

“You? Oh, you will not get off so easily.” Exodus held out a hand towards Wolverine for dramatic effect as Wolverine felt his body lift and his mind invaded. “I wanted you awake for your ending. You who have caused so much pain and suffering to Lord Magnus, you will feel every bit of what I have in store. You will be hurt. Then you will heal. Then you will be hurt again.”

“What if that’s not what your ‘Lord’ wanted?” asked Logan, Exodus replying simply with a cocked eyebrow. “He kept me alive for some reason.”

“He was never given the proper opportunity,” replied Exodus, “nor should a god be bothered with the dirty work that can be easily handled by his followers.”

Wolverine opened his mouth to speak again, but was cut off as Exodus stopped his mind from speaking.

“You talk too much,” said Exodus.

The Acolytes and X-Men fought on, a crowd gathering around not sure who was right or wrong, only seeing the damage, only getting angrier and angrier at the ‘menace’ that these creatures were. There were gasps and screams as a light shined down from above, a light which surrounded the man generating it.

“This ends!” shouted Magneto, silence falling over the crowd and fighters. He hovered ten feet above the ground, glowing from electromagnetic energy he manipulated, his red and purple cape flowing in the wind like his white hair, grasping in his right hand the shirt collar of an unconscious man.

“Charles!” shouted Storm as she started towards the two men. An Acolyte moved to stop her, but both were held in place as Magneto lifted his free hand.

“He is alive, Ororo,” said Magneto through clenched teeth, releasing her and his Acolyte, “which is more than I can say for your dream.”

His hand released Xavier a second before he bent backwards from the impact.

Joseph held onto the man who was his father as he made a sharp turn towards the ground, the two colliding with the Earth with a force that would kill ordinary men.

Joseph was tossed out of the crater their impact caused by a magnetic push by Magneto, who rose out of the crater himself.

“You flaunt your powers, boy,” said Magneto as he tried to regain the air knocked out of him by the impact. “But you do not know them, their full extent, nor their limitations.”

“I know how to use them,” replied Joseph as he sent a surge of energy towards his father, who simply deflected it.

“Do you?”

Joseph felt something close around him and invade him, power, energy, the will of Magneto, and he fought back.

Energy coursed through the air between the two men as they pushed themselves and their powers, trying to gain the upperhand, both realizing that their failure meant the failure of their purpose.

Youth and power versus age and experience.

Joseph opened his mouth to scream and did so with what little energy he was not using towards the battle.

A flash of bright light followed, engulfing the two Masters of Magnetism.

Wolverine clenched his teeth as he felt the pain. Exodus stood across the room, smiling as he tortured the X-Man. Then, the pain stopped being caused, and the pain of healing began.

“And we will do this again and again,” said Exodus, “until your body simply gives…”

Exodus was cut off by his own shout as pain shot through his back. He spun around and the pain followed, staying on his back, and, in his turning, he came face to face with what could only be described as a maggot, which latched itself to his face. Maggott smiled from where he stood in the corner of the room as Eany and Meany went to work.

Wolverine collapsed to the ground as Exodus’ concentration was broken. Gabrielle Haller was at his side helping him up almost immediately.

“I’ve got you, Logan,” said Gaby as Wolverine stood and put an arm around her. “Let’s go.”

“No,” gasped Logan as he steadied himself on his own feet and let go of Gaby.

Bone claws shot from his hands as he ran towards Exodus. Just as Exodus ripped the maggot from his face the bone claws were there to replace it.

Exodus stumbled back and tried to get his bearings, tried to concentrate, but one of those maggots were still on his back, and just as he thought to get it off, Wolverine slashed again.

The X-Men had the upperhand.

The blast was blindingly bright, and, had Magneto not already done so, would have shut off power across all of Washington DC and probably a good portion of Northern Virginia. What most folks didn’t feel though, and what Magneto and Joseph did, was the electromagnetic pulse’s physical power. It was pain to Magneto and Joseph, pain caused from their mutant powers that tuned them into those feelings.

Magneto reeled from the blast as Joseph passed out and fell to the ground. Rogue was quick to the punch, flying up to and then bringing both of her fists down on the Master of Magnetism, sending him crashing into the ground.

“X-Men!” came a shout, getting the attention of Rogue and everyone else. They all turned to see the Acolytes gathering around Cargill, who held Professor Xavier high in the air.

“I will kill him,” she shouted, the X-Men tensing at the mention.

“Hold, X-Men,” said Storm to the group as they all wanted to save Xavier.

“Re… release him…” came a tired voice, creating a new center of attention. Magneto pulled himself out of the hole Rogue had forced him to make.

“My lord,” said Amelia Vought, starting to walk toward her fallen leader.

“RELEASE XAVIER!” shouted Magneto as the Acolytes all felt pain in their bodies. Xavier’s fell to the ground as the Acolytes fell to their knees in pain.

Magneto rose off the ground and surveyed the scene. A crowd was still gathered to the side, watching the events unfold with a mix of fear and hate in their eyes. The X-Men stood ready, but unsure of what would happen next as the Acolytes clutched at themselves in pain.

An old friend lay on the ground.

A son lay on the ground.

“There lies your dream, X-Men,” said Magneto, pointing at the suffering Acolytes and unconscious Xavier and Joseph.

And he lifted himself into the air, no one opting to follow or chase.

Wolverine slashed again, bone claws digging deep into Exodus’s arm that tried to protect his face. Something continued to gnaw at his back, another thing at his leg now. He tried to concentrate, tried to get his bearings, but too many things were happening at once.

He opened his eyes for a moment and saw past the pain, saw past the fury and fight to a woman across the room. He tried to concentrate.

Gabrielle Haller screamed for a second, then passed out as her mind shut off. Maggott saw her collapse and ran to her as Wolverine pinned Exodus against the wall and aimed for one well placed slash.

“If you kill me,” Exodus said through a clenched smile, “she dies with me.”

Wolverine hesitated for a moment, and that was all it took for Exodus to get in his head. Wolverine fell back grabbing his head as Exodus laughed.

“You all turned this beast on me,” he said, looking at Gaby and Maggott, “perhaps I should return the favor, no?”

Wolverine let go of his head and looked over his shoulder at Maggott and Gaby, a look in his eye that unsettled Maggott.

“Logan!” he said as Wolverine turned and approached the unconscious Gaby and very conscious Maggott. “Fight him! Logan, you’re stronger than that! You have to resist!”

Wolverine kept approaching, Exodus kept smiling, Maggott kept inching back with Gaby in his arms.

Then, Wolverine stopped. Exodus’ smile faded as he looked up and seemed lost in thought for a moment.

“He has returned!” Exodus said as the smile returned and he gazed at Maggott.

The ceiling pulled open towards the sky, harsh Siberian winds pouring into the room. Magneto lowered himself from the sky and landed between Exodus and the X-Men, looking at and only acknowledging Exodus.

Magneto opened his mouth and spoke only one word, “Come,” and he lifted himself back into the air. Exodus stood for a moment and looked at Maggott, his smile still there, his eyes glowing.

A burst of energy shot from Exodus’ eyes and struck Maggott, his screams cut off by the darkness that quickly closed in on him.

And, with that, Exodus lifted himself into the air and followed his liege.

NEXT ISSUE: Magneto has returned, and the world has felt his presence. The X-Men lie broken and beaten, but they must survive. Did Joseph survive his dramatic conflict with his father? What did Exodus do to Maggott before leaving with Magneto? Answers will come, as will more questions.