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Illyan Is Hunted By…

Summary:

Having successfully completed his hunt, turnabout is fair play, right?

Chapter 1: By Apocalypse

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Why doesn’t anyone make a fucking appointment?” Alex asked as he ducked backwards from a barrage of bullets coming from the HYDRA goons down the corridor.

That abruptly stopped as Mary appeared behind them, stunning them both simultaneously. “Wouldn’t be an ambush if they did,” she noted.

“More are coming in from the east,” Shilpa’s voice warned them. “And I’m totally blind on the upper floors now. They’ve fried all the cameras.”

“Avengers and SWAT are inbound. Is this floor evacuated besides our forces?” Illyan asked. The director of the New York office had her physical office on the top floor, which had ended poorly for her as she’d died in the initial breach.

“Yes, sir.” Shilpa was acting as his eyes and ears, as he gave orders to the remaining MRD forces. The office had less than fifty agents on duty and they generally (with the exception of Illyan’s people) didn’t wander around armed, which had made the initial encounter quite bad. The noncombatants had fled, but more than twenty agents had died and Illyan’s team had been forced to fairly drastic measures to buy time for the rest to get to the armory. Shilpa had crashed the elevator systems and Luo had blown two of the stairwells to rubble.

HYDRA had responded by blowing their way through the floor, rather than try to make their way past the blockade they’d put together on the last stairwell.

They’d thought they’d managed to somewhat turn the tide with a carefully managed plasma arc shot up through the building and the cloaked heavy-lift transport the HYDRA goons had landed on the roof, but apparently it had already unloaded its entire payload of troopers. This was clearly a suicide mission…which didn’t make any sense. If they could get a planeload of troopers in, they could get a planeload of explosives in, which probably would have levelled the building. Maybe not, it was well built and designed to resist such things, but it was better odds than a suicide attack by HYDRA goons.

There was something else going on here. Maybe a theft or kidnapping? Theft didn’t make much sense. There was no truly advanced tech here except his, which would explode if stolen. Kidnapping? He doubted Valentina held this much of a grudge and he hadn’t done anything else to HYDRA that he’d noticed.

Viktor didn’t have his sniper rifle and couldn’t have used it anyway, given the space constraints, but he would have been far happier with something that fired more rapidly than the standard issue stunner he had. Which was why he was carrying a HYDRA issue automatic rifle that had almost gotten him shot the first time he used it as it had a quite distinctive sound. Still, by this point, Illyan’s team was acting as rearguard as the surviving field agents finished setting up the defenses below them.

It was time to put those to the test, so they fell back another floor.

They formed up with the surviving agents and HYDRA’s initial probes went nowhere. They tried blowing their way through the floor again, but Illyan had successfully predicted their location and it was hard to defend yourself while dropping ten feet onto the floor. They tried to hide behind smoke grenades, but that didn’t particularly work either. Partly because Shilpa had control of the building systems and used the vents and fans to pull the smoke out far faster than expected and partly because several of the agents had thermal goggles on which saw right through the smoke.

A few grenades bounced down, but the agents were far enough back to be all right. Several more tried to slip past onto the floors below and plant charges underneath, only to be spotted by Shilpa and discover that the floors weren’t bulletproof and she could see through the cameras well enough to tell agents where to fire to make life very uncomfortable for them.

Even more rapelled down the elevator shafts, only to find agents waiting for them. The numbers were starting to tip in their favor. Especially as SWAT and the more street level Avengers (minus Steve who was in DC for a meeting) were already breaching the ground floor and heading up towards them and Thor was already on the roof (though he was currently attempting to remove the transport as Tony was getting some disturbing readings from the thing and seemed to be concerned it might explode).

Pietro suddenly just appeared beside Illyan. “What’s the plan?”

“This doesn’t make any sense. Can you scout up above, see what they’re after? Stun anyone who gets in your way.” Illyan asked.

The mutant nodded, snatching a stunner from an MRD agent who wasn’t bothering with it against the HYDRA goons. A moment later he was sprinting up and HYDRA agents were dropping.

A moment later, he heard Thor’s voice in his ear, “What—” and then the sound of a massive explosion.

When his ears cleared, he heard Tony yelling something about Apocalypse. Apparently, he and Thor were fighting on the roof. Well, that probably explained what was happening here. One of the madman’s little tests intended to strengthen the survivors through conflict.

“We’ll go with plan three,” Illyan said to his team, before yelling out commands for everyone uninvolved to clear the building. At the same time, Shilpa began relaying orders to the Avengers. They began to retreat, only to have to stop as Tony’s armored form came hurtling through the ceiling and floor alike, tossed by Apocalypse.

The mad mutant followed him, apparently propelled merely by his mind, but before he could do anything, a massive lightning bolt hit him. An instant later, so did a plasma arc shot from Luo, who’d grabbed the weapon as part of plan three. Both burst on his armor, apparently harmlessly (as did a spattering of bullets from the other agents) and the man’s deep echoing voice filled the air as he turned to look directly at Illyan.

“You are interfering with what is necessary. Only conflict can strengthen us. And we must be strong. Peace breeds weakness and therefore you must—"

Pietro was all over him, the borrowed vibra-blade bouncing off his armor, but drawing lines on it from each impact. As Apocalypse tried to force him away with pure energy, the pure white energy coming from his suit impacted scarlet waves coming in from the window, where Wanda hung. Apocalypse glanced around in irritation, which only grew worse as more energy poured from Luo, Thor and even up from Tony as he recovered.

Illyan circled around, away from his allies, signaling for them to go the other way. If Apocalypse wanted him, then there was no point putting others in the crossfire. As Apocalypse turned to pursue, he gave Shilpa his back and she tried to connect to his armor and make a hole for Pietro to take advantage of. The man plowed through a wall in pursuit of Illyan, but he did pause as he felt Shilpa connect to his armor.

He started to turn back and Illyan (who was keeping an eye on his pursuer and therefore could see Shilpa standing behind the ancient mutant) yelled a warning and a command to Pietro. Shilpa was removed from the line of fire by the speedster and Apocalypse turned back to Illyan, lifting a hand as energy formed around it. A few shots from his nerve disruptor did nothing as Illyan fruitlessly tried to dodge. Only Jennifer slamming through the building and directly into his massive, armored form was enough to force the mutant’s arm skyward.

The ravenous blast of energy ate its way through the ceiling, revealing the sky and Thor’s form as the alleged-god descended, blocking off Illyan’s view. Mjolnir impacted the armor with a massive shockwave that actually sent Illyan sprawling. Tony must have shifted tactics as the man’s armor suddenly started to deform and the energy beam coming from the man shifted color. The plasma arc fire remained the same color, however. Wanda’s bands of crimson light began to tighten around him. Hank and Janet reported they’d found a way into his armor and were ripping it apart from the molecular level and then there was a sudden burst of energy sending everyone sprawling backwards.

Well, it sent the superheroes sprawling back. Illyan impacted the wall right next to a broken pipe and was grateful to be both conscious and alive, though his was fairly sure he had cracked ribs. Luo was unconscious on the other side and from the way he’d hit the ground and the blood pouring from his scalp, he probably had a cracked skull. Mary had somehow managed to find the one remaining stable wall to hide behind and was now rushing the mutant with the vibra-knife Pietro must have given her as he withdrew.

Apocalypse himself had dropped to one knee, but his hand was coming up towards Illyan. There was only one move available to him, so he rolled out the shattered wall and fell three stories to the landscaping. The grass was mostly soft, but a three-story fall still hurt like hell and he’d fallen on his face. His nose was definitely broken, and he could taste blood. It wasn’t fun at all, but it bought him and Mary an extra moment. It took him almost a minute to stand up, by then it was all over.

Pietro wasn’t stupid. He took Shilpa to a place where she could see the battle, but was out of the line of fire and was on his way back.

Apocalypse felt the blade stab into the back of his armor’s neck, powered by all of Mary’s hatred and considerable strength. His distraction and power drain was sufficient that it stabbed deep, but not deep enough to kill him, even though it went up to its hilt in the neck of his armor. Unfortunately, he was a tiny, withered man sheltering in the chest of the huge suit of armor. But as he spun he knocked her away, breaking ribs even as she tried to roll with the blow and slammed hard against the wall that had sheltered her. Apocalypse’s focus and control reached its absolute nadir at the exact moment that Shilpa made her second strike and Pietro began launching an insane number of stabs, snatching the blade from the badly injured Mary, who still tried to rise.

As Apocalypse’s control weakened still further, Shilpa found the life support controls in the armor and ordered them to give him literally all the medications it had. An instant later the armor collapsed as En Sabah Nur died. Or at least, his body went still.

“What happened?” Pietro asked, without ever stopping stabbing the collapsed armor.

“I killed him,” Shilpa said bluntly. “The armor isn’t stable. I think it’s going to explode.”

“Dump the body out, Shilpa. Thor, confirm kill. Toss armor into orbit.” Illyan could only manage a few words at a time. “Everyone else, sound off.”

Mary and Luo were down, Alex treating them as the rest of the walking-wounded agents made stretchers (as racing a woman with a back injury and a man with a head injury to the hospital in Pietro’s arms seemed like a bad idea).

Everyone else was mostly all right. Though Shilpa’s voice made it clear she wasn’t terribly comfortable with her first kill. Needed a distraction and there was plenty to do. “Shilpa, Tony, Jenn, search and rescue. Pietro, Nat, Clint, search and destroy. Hank, Janet, Wanda, transport injured.” Illyan leaned on the wall as he made it three more steps towards the entrance. “Tony, building stable?”

The engineer assured them it mostly was, except for the bits that were on fire. Ambulances were pulling up and there was a makeshift triage in the parking lot which Illyan made his way towards, as he was not doing terribly well. Indeed, he was doing badly enough that he got to ride in the first wave of ambulances, along with Mary and Luo. As he left, he ordered Shilpa to take charge of the inter-agency coordination, Alex to handle the triage problem and Viktor to handle the security/classification problems with a bunch of random people running through a highly secure facility. Each to their strengths…well, that was what he would tell the others, if he woke up. The real reason was to strengthen Shilpa’s position in the event he didn’t survive.

After that, it was mostly just a matter of trying not to pass out and belatedly worrying about where his weapons had ended up. And the fallout. Physical. Political. And emotional.

Notes:

Well, that solves that problem.

Right?

Comments and critiques always welcome!

Chapter 2: By Genoshans

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Shilpa sat in the hospital room. She’d talked to the NYPD, the FBI, SHIELD, and the press already. And reported to the director. Well, sort of. She’d answered Illyan’s phone and confirmed Apocalypse was dead and the condition of Illyan’s team. The man from Stryker’s office hadn’t done a good job of hiding his glee at their condition and so there’d been an unfortunate accident which ended the call.

The Avengers seemed to be getting most of the credit, which she was fine with, though Illyan probably would have wanted to claim it. She just…couldn’t. Not while she could still feel herself pressing those drugs into the withered old man’s body. Her mind racing through the ancient machines and wresting control from the almost-equally-ancient monster living inside.

No. She’d spent too long with Illyan to pretend he’d been a monster. He’d been a mutant. A man. Just like the rest, only more powerful and choosing to use his powers to kill. And she’d beaten him. Oh, it had taken everyone else too. But she’d been the one to do it.

And the one to talk to the press. She’d managed that well enough, she thought. She was pretty sure, in fact, since her brief interview was playing repeatedly on the news, along with images of the still-smoldering MRD office.

Bodies were still being retrieved, but her team was alive, if not exactly well. She’d checked on the others, but found herself sitting in Illyan’s room. Alex was asleep in the doctor’s on-call room. They hadn’t wanted to allow that as he wasn’t a doctor, but Viktor was with him and still armed and covered in blood, so he’d won that argument. There were cops all over the place, mostly because the NYPD was embarrassed about basically not being involved.

Not in the fight against Apocalypse, everyone knew that he was an Avenger’s level threat (which just made the fact that she’d been crucial to the victory even more confusing). But the HYDRA attack that had been Apocalypse’s little test/game, that was something they should have been able to help with. SHIELD was less embarrassed, because Black Widow and Hawkeye had been on the scene.

Illyan was going to be fine. Cracked ribs, broken nose, fractured vertebrae and cheekbone, along with some lacerations. Luo was actually worse off, with a fractured skull. Mary’s armored torso had kept Apocalypse’s blow from killing her, but she had broken ribs and vertebrae and was in for months of physical therapy.

They’d drugged him quite a bit before they patched him up. She’d sort of hoped for a funny moment or two, like in the movies, but he just got sleepy. Though, some part of her did notice that he didn’t actually fall asleep until everyone else had left, except her. It was nice that he trusted her. He trusted her with his life and his weapons, which sat in her lap. That was also nice. But…it still didn’t make her forget the feeling of that man dying as she pushed poison into his veins. And the thought of using those weapons was a reminder of what she’d just done…

She should be asleep. The chair wasn’t terribly comfortable, but it was late, and she was tired. She should sleep. But couldn’t.

Some part of her was almost glad when she heard a massive explosion.


There were three of them. Smiling killers in bright costumes. One had some sort of shielding power, easily deflecting the bullets and stunner shots the police were firing. The second was a pyrokinetic, setting fires as they walked and occasionally hurling a ball of fire at a group of cops. The third had to be some sort of hunter, as they were heading directly towards Illyan’s room.

She could hear Viktor and Alex arguing about whether or not using Luo’s grenade launcher inside a hospital was a good idea.

She took a moment to think and watch. The fire didn’t work like a bullet, but it did interrupt the attack as the hit officer tended to panic and several others had to stop firing to put it out. All of the officers were in front of the trio. Maybe the defender couldn’t do a full bubble? That was worth trying.

Stunners didn’t work. Bullets didn’t work. She really didn’t want to try Illyan’s other weapons. But the attackers were able to throw fire out. It should work both ways? Maybe it opened when he tossed out fire. But to hit someone through a small opening, in that window…

The only one who might manage it was Viktor. Could she give the order to kill the defender? If Viktor took him down, the other two would drop easy.

Three more bodies.

But she couldn’t just let them kill Simon and he couldn’t be moved.

Could he make the shot with a stunner? No way to know without making the suggestion and then Viktor might just choose to act on his own. She wasn’t in command here…

The hunter suddenly spoke up, “You have taken a great man from us. A great leader of the homo superior cause. A great warrior. But he injured many of you vermin before falling. We will finish his work! Regardless of the cost to ourselves! WE WILL RISE!”

And it was then that they got close enough that she could get that little itch in her brain. The same one she got looking at Simon, or the Genoshan slaves. As this wasn’t Simon, everything clicked into place at once. This was a Genoshan false flag operation. Kill Simon, blame the mutants, distract the MRD, and SHIELD.

Which made the situation even more complicated. Both politically and morally. She really wasn’t in the mood for this.

“They’re Genoshan slaves,” she broadcast to both the cops and her own team. Alex, can you draw their fire? I think they have to open the shields when they use that fire ability?”

“Gotcha,” Alex agreed, his suicidal streak coming to the fore as he popped out from behind the group, fired three stunner shots ineffectively and began yelling out something vulgar about Genosha. She hadn’t thought it would be possible to make a limerick out of the countries name as it didn’t really rhyme with much, but he managed it. And between the two actions, he got their attention.

Shilpa herself emerged from hiding and joined the firing line of cops between the trio and Illyan, ordering them to stand down. They didn’t listen to her. She reached for the voice of command, Illyan had it, he’d taught her. She just had to make it fucking work. “Stunners, only, officers.”

The nearest officer tried to shove her aside and she let trained instinct move her body through the motion Black Widow had taught her. He slammed into the ground, her boot on his neck, gun pointed at the ceiling.

“That is an order!” she snapped, one hand lifting the MRD badge from her pocket and flashing it around her. “STUNNERS ONLY!”

The other officers switched weapons, thought she honestly wasn’t certain if it was the badge, the voice or the very angry pinned man. But she didn’t care. Viktor had dropped one of them, unfortunately, the pyro had leapt in front of the defender, leaving the two of them still advancing. The hunter lifted the pyro as they advanced.

“Viktor, Alex, try closing. Quiet.”

She didn’t know if it was the speed, or the fact that they were organic, or the speed, or the shield pulling in tighter, or something else, but they got closer than the previous volleys had been stopped, before the hunter suddenly spun, drawing a pistol. The defender did the same, but targeted Shilpa’s group instead. Viktor and Alex both fired, but the shield was still between them and they both scattered as the hunter sprayed shots, returning fire. Shilpa’s group did the same, though Shilpa trusted in the armor Illyan had produced.

She didn’t bother trying to time it correctly, but instead simply aimed at the defender and kept firing until she got lucky. Two of the police officers were down, but the defender dropped as well. With him down, the hunter dropped a moment later.

Alex moved to help the injured as hospital security and staff began to pour into the area as the fire alarm belatedly went off and the sprinklers activated. That timing was…if this was a false flag, then it probably needed to be recorded. Which meant—she turned to the nearest security camera. When she tried to get in, there was someone else in the system.

 “Viktor, Alex, there’s someone else in the system. Maybe the security room? Or server room? Can’t tell, but I think I can keep them focused on me.”

The two agents grabbed a security guard as a guide and sprinted off. Whoever was in the system as well wasn’t as good as her. No surprise if they were being mind controlled. But they had more access, while Shilpa could only follow her single camera back towards them, they had full access to the entire system. But it didn’t matter, she focused all her fear, all her fury, all her guilt into a single spike and shoved it forward, through her opponent’s defenses, right into the chip in the core of their being. She couldn’t do it for the others, but this mutant had been given, had been forced to accept a power which connected their brain to tech. Having tech in their brain as well, just made it possible for her to reach into that chip and shut it down.

That broke the connection instantly. By the time she’d recovered enough to tell the others what she’d done, the poor freed slave had already been stunned unconscious. Even more annoying was the fact that while she’d been distracted, the cops had cuffed the captured slaves and were trying to figure out where to take them.

The answer to that question was the labs in Avengers Tower, but now that they’d recovered and she’d released the one who was holding his throat (and a grudge, from the way he was looking at her) they weren’t quite so susceptible to her orders. Especially as she’d just sent her backup away and the prisoners had undoubtedly at least assaulted police officers and maybe worse.

There were a bunch of ways she could have responded, but in the end, she had the legal authority. The MRD handled mutant crimes. In other circumstances, they might have tried to push it, but with press flooding into the area and doctors all around them, they backed off. Instead, they made sure they were in all the shots until Shilpa could call in some assistance to get the new prisoners over to Avengers Tower.

Then, alas, she had to deal with the press. Again.

Twice in one day was a bit much. But the MRD press officer was dead and a new one hadn’t arrived yet. Also, Illyan would be disappointed if she didn’t seize this opportunity and allowed Genosha to shape the narrative, especially as the video of the fight had already leaked, before she and the team had taken down the technopath.

It was simple enough. Release a bit more of the video (though not the bit of her tossing a cop around like a sack of potatoes) and explain about Genosha. News there had already leaked out somewhat, though almost no one knew what had happened in Tanzania. Someone had been laying the groundwork for future conflicts, so the news that Genosha had enslaved mutants under control wasn’t news.

They were quite focused on her. Of course, the fact that she was sopping wet from the sprinklers may have helped with that. But regardless, she answered most of their questions easily, waiting for someone to feed her a straight line she could escape on.

The question she actually got was so banal she wanted to scream, which meant it was time to flee. “How are you feeling?”

She chose to interpret it differently than intended.  “How do I feel? Proud, sad, determined. Proud: The slavers knew they couldn’t take us straight on, so they waited until after we’d defeated Apocalypse to make their attempt. And they still failed. It’s clear now that the best they can manage are ambushes and even those only work on surprised children, not agents of the MRD. Sad: We’ve lost many agents today. Friends, colleagues and comrades. But they died as they lived, protecting people.” Well, that was sort of bullshit for quite a few of them, but no one could disprove it and it was the right sort of thing. “Determined. For all the horrors of the last 24 hours. We won and proved we can continue to win. Apocalypse is no more and to all the others who would use their powers to harm people…no amount of power can protect you. No amount of violence can dissuade us. And we will not stop. We are the MRD and we are here to protect you. That is how I feel. And if you’ll excuse me, I should get back to work.”

Illyan would have been pithier, but she was pretty sure it worked.


Stryker’s fist slammed down onto his desk. The slaves he’d acquired at great expense in both money and favors were lost. The public incident he’d been planning on had been turned around on him and worst of all that mutie bitch had turned around and used it to strengthen Illyan and his fucking delusional capitulators.

And he’d given them another set of test subjects. Genosha would not be pleased.

Still, he forced his hand to relax and spread flat on the unblemished and slick wood of his desk. This wasn’t a total loss. There had been casualties. And the bitch had admitted they were mutants, and she took them alive. Spreading the story that she’d saved murderers because they were mutants, and she didn’t care about the humans they killed…that was doable.

It might even be true. He doubted it though. More likely Illyan’s damnable softness was rubbing off on her.

But the worst thing was that Illyan had beaten him without ever waking up, let alone getting out of bed. That was infuriating. He needed better people, but Smith was dead, Mary was a traitor and most of his original elite were either retired or dead. How had his inner circle grown so bureaucratic? So scientific? So weak?

Was he making a mistake with Trask? Maybe instead of going for this scientific, technological, clean way to solve the mutant problem, he should just have done it the old-fashioned way? Bullets in the head always work.

Except they don’t…

Whether it’s that mongrel Sabretooth or any of Wolverine’s various copies, many mutants were absurdly hard to kill.

And most people didn’t have the strength to put down a mutie that looked like a teenager, let alone a child.

No, this was the only way. But Trask needed more time, more money, and some way to neutralize mutant powers. He was getting close, but he’d used up the last nullifier Stryker had found, and such creatures were rare.

There was no alternative. He would just have to endure this bureaucratic existence for a while longer, until he could finish this and save humanity.

Notes:

Huh...always bad when you've got so many enemies they can disguise themselves as one another, or start working together.

Comments and corrections always welcome.

Chapter 3: By Emotion

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Illyan’s eyes opened. The world swam and it didn’t. It swayed in his actual vision, but if he focused through the chip, what he was actually seeing was steady. His mind only thought it swam, but the chip knew better. He focused back, there was no blank spot in his chip, though he didn’t actually remember much after they gave him the drugs.

The chip even recorded sound and darkness when he slept and something was flagged in that recording. Explosions and many gunshots. The fact that he’d slept through that said something about how either exhausted or drugged he had been. He automatically looked around and saw Shilpa asleep in a chair beside his bed.

A stab of guilt hit him as he shifted and was quite surprised not to have physical pain to go along with that, though the drugs probably helped with that. It was unfortunate she’d had to kill En Sabah Nur. But that had always been a likely outcome. But there was something fairly horrible in the fact that he’d taken a girl who wanted to be a hero and shaped her into a killer. And all the while he’d been shaping himself from a killer into a would-be hero, without even noticing…but that was an evasion. The question was what he’d done to Shilpa.

He’d done that before to others, of course. But usually the various Imperial Academies got them over that initial hump. They might enlist to be heroes, or serve the Emperor, or just for meals and a place to sleep, but no one got into ImpSec without knowing what they were doing. Or at least, no one he dealt with. Handling informants and assets was a different matter, but Illyan had spent his life on the uniformed side of the house and hadn’t had to do much of that.

The trouble was, there hadn’t been a better option. This wasn’t like with Genosha where there were other options and there was real doubt as to whether he was weighing them properly. Here, the only route to defeating Apocalypse had been the one they’d chosen. And for all his qualms, Shilpa had been as much a part of making it as any of the others. And she’d shaped herself at least as much as he had.

Of course, if he’d known at the start that he was going to be the target, there would have needed to be a different plan. And maybe even consideration of not fighting, if an agreement could be reached. For all his many and varied sins, the mutant did keep his word.

On the other hand, the man’s death was both good in and of itself and an opportunity. One which had been taken advantage of, if the news coverage he could see on the television was anything to go by. He’d have preferred to switch through the channels to see if this had gotten caught up in the interminable internal politics of this absurd nation, but the remote was by Shilpa and given that she was asleep, and he didn’t hurt, yet, he decided not to bother.

Mary would be happy, but last he’d heard, an ambulance was taking her off in critical condition. Luo was almost as bad. Only Viktor, Alex and Shilpa had escaped significant injury. At least physically. He’d need to keep an eye on Shilpa for delayed reaction. The first one was always hard.

But for the moment, he was alone and had time to think. He still didn’t see a better option, but then again, he’d never been more than a good tactician. This problem had wanted an Aral, or a Kanzian, or maybe even a Miles, not him. He might curse his own lack of brilliance there, but he was too old and too familiar with his own limitations to truly feel guilt over it.

No, the guilt he felt was over a different failure. He should have included the Avengers in the planning. Steve was that sort of tactician and Natalia had skill in that arena as well, but he’d wanted to take advantage of that connection while avoiding integration that might threaten divided loyalties. One thing the Avengers had aplenty was divisions amongst them. He tried to bind them together and separately bind his team together. Use the friendlier competition as he’d used the hatred of much of the MRD earlier.

That had been an error, which had cost them dearly. With proper integration, the plan would have been far more effective. Instead, the Avengers had just acted, while the MRD agents just tried to delay until Shilpa could make an opening, which would have proven entirely beyond her without the Avengers to assist in exhausting the man. That mistake had had horrifying consequences, though, to be fair, nonfatal ones.

There’d been no way to avoid the casualties from the HYDRA attack. Well, not unless he’d been willing to share certain shielding technologies and have them installed in the building. Which was possible. But, like Genosha, it wasn’t the smart play, it wasn’t the right play. Probably. It was always possible he was wrong.

The rest of it could be fixed, though Steve and Natalia probably would be hesitant to assist in plans to handle the X-Men as they seemed fairly aligned with that faction and asking for assistance in planning Magento’s death might be…delicate. But the world was, alas, full of threats they could help plan for.

Make a mistake, fix it. That was what the MRD motto ought to be.

They’d certainly made plenty of mistakes over the last decades.

Maybe it was the injuries, maybe it was the drugs, but he found himself dwelling on his own mistakes. But well trained and practiced reflexes stopped that and he found himself instead dwelling on the situation.

Not the details of the current moment. Not plotting about Genosha. That plan was done and in motion. There was little he could do on it until either a cure was found, or it was certain one would not be. Indeed, he’d shared some few ideas with Tony as the man worked on the technical side. But that was in flight.

Stryker…the man’s position remained too firm. Indeed, Illyan’s crediting Shilpa’s presence to him had undercut the reformists’ interest in deposing him. What needed to happen was an assassination. Maybe some forged documents about plans for further integration? Maybe even not forged documents. If Illyan made some noise about that. Maybe plans for a promotion. The problem was, it would need to be faked right.

If mutants got the blame, it would undo everything. But if hardline MRD members, or one of the hate groups got the blame, or even better, could be manipulated into doing it…that would shift the narrative and create an opening. Unfortunately, he lacked the capacity to arrange that here and it was always dangerous to attempt. If he was uncovered, it would be even worse than if the Brotherhood or some other mutant group killed Stryker.

But this was an evasion.

He’d considered these problems at some length. The situation wasn’t tactical. It wasn’t even strategic. It was emotional.

He was here. He doubted he would ever make it back. The X-Men had failed to make any progress. Indeed, it appeared to be an escalating problem as more people were dragged through. If she brought through the wrong Cetegandan Ghem or even another Barrayran, things might go very wrong. And that was without the problems back home if she grabbed the wrong person.

There was a real question whether the right answer was to freeze her.

He’d been hiding from that question for the entire time he’d been here. Well, initially he’d been hiding from the question of whether or not to kill her, but the discovery of the Ice Box resolved that problem. Since then, he’d been hiding from the question of cryo-freezing her.

Just as he’d been hiding from the notion that he wouldn’t be able to get home. He played the loyal servant just trying to fulfil the Edict on Mutation so well that he’d managed to fool himself.

For a time.

He wasn’t acting this way in order to protect Diana. Or at least, hadn’t been for months. And it wasn’t obedience to an Edict which it was almost impossible to argue applied here.

He was acting because he’d thought he was finally free to do so. Free to just be an agent and an actor on the great stage without being responsible for the play itself. Without having to handle the broader implications of polities and people. But that wasn’t true anymore. Perhaps it had never been true. He almost laughed at the notion that in running from responsibility, he had ended up in almost exactly the same place he'd started. At least ever since he’d aligned himself with the Avengers, he’d been in a position which meant he should have treated it as he did his ImpSec duties.

Instead, he’d done the exact same thing that Stryker had done.

Oh, not the cruelty, the brutality, the bigotry, or the folly.

Well, mostly not those things.

But Stryker’s great weakness had been revealed in the man’s initial threat and only supported by his subsequent actions. The man was still an operator, not a leader. The moment Illyan became a threat, the man came out to evaluate him, personally. Then tried manipulation, direct control, threats, then indirect violence. Only direct violence was left of the operator’s playbook. Maybe this had even been such an attempt, though he supposed that might be categorized as indirect violence...he returned his attention to his enemy. Stryker did other things on occasion, but those were only stalling actions to buy himself time. The re-assignments, the Kiln wardenship, those were meant to be stalls.

A real bureaucrat would have buried him somewhere, or kept him constantly moving, such that he couldn’t work. A real leader wouldn't have lost Mary's loyalty and would have taken that of the rest of Illyan's team, maybe even of Illyan himself. But Stryker's instincts betrayed him because he was still an operator at heart. Illyan wondered how such a man had set up the MRD and wondered what bureaucrat had helped him and been disappeared from MRD history for his trouble. Or perhaps had disappeared himself, if they were anything like Illyan. No one plotted the assassination of invisible men.

Well, that wasn’t true here, but only for the literally, not figuratively invisible.

But he was slipping from the point again, as his mind tried to evade the emotional and focus on the strategic. He wasn’t like Stryker. His instincts weren’t those of an operator. Indeed, he’d spent less time as an actual field operator than he had as a child. Oh, he’d had some successes. Retrieving Admiral Kanzian had been no easy feat. Nor had getting Aral into Vorrutyer’s quarters. Nor hiding Cordelia and Bothari.  Nor the deaths of Deputy Minister Lezari of the Ministry of Political Education and his bodyguards-cum-assistants. But the closest he’d come to the field in decades was the occasional stint with Gregor, or conversation with Miles.

No, he was pretending to be an operator because he didn’t want to be the director of ImpSec again. The weight of that. Having to consider every decision to make sure that each step he made could bear the weight of the Empire and wouldn’t provoke a backlash he could neither predict, nor control…

Having to pretend not to play favorites…

Having to send agents to certain deaths for uncertain gains…

Having to be the eyes and shield of millions of people, the force which kept order, peace and security throughout three star systems…

Having to be the Chief of Imperial Security.

It wasn’t until he’d put down the weight that he’d realized how much it was crushing him.

And so he’d tried to evade picking it up again. Without ever realizing that was what he was doing. Which explained why he’d decided to create a small, isolated unit which he could trust, when his theoretical goal had been Diana’s protection. That would have been far better accomplished by playing along to acquire a position of authority and influence. But that would have required that he continue to be the Chief of Imperial Security, not merely an agent again.

But he wasn’t the Chief of Imperial Security anymore. Gregor had appointed someone else. Lucas, or Guy, probably. Miles wasn’t ready and if Illyan’s suspicions proved true, was due for a discharge before he could ever be ready.

He shook off the distraction of what was happening back on Barrayar. That was irrelevant. here he was in charge of his team. And if his little outburst of first names while under stress and in pain showed anything, he was also at least aligned with the Avengers.

There was no hiding from that. There was no dodging the responsibility for it. Which meant he had work to do.

But not until he could get up, or get someone to bring him a computer.

He wondered if Miles had ever felt like this, grateful for an injury that let him escape a duty he did not want to undertake.

Probably not, the boy’s energy was endless. But then again, he’d never hit a wall he couldn’t break through, tunnel under, climb over, or blow up. Of course, neither had Illyan.

Not until now.

There was no way back.

The Chief of Imperial Security was dead. Long live Simon Illyan, the traitor who was going to overthrow Director Stryker and rebuild the MRD from the ground up.

Somehow.

When he could stand up.

Notes:

Hey, a chapter with no talking! That's a choice.

Comments and corrections always welcome.

Chapter 4: By Shilpa

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Illyan was quite familiar with physical therapy, though usually as an observer, not a participant. His was minor, compared to Mary’s, who still wasn’t up to getting out of her hospital room. Luo was still unconscious, but the swelling in his brain was going down and everyone was optimistic.

However, he was sitting down at this point, mostly done and trying to ignore the handful of guards who were watching him. Well, not precisely ignore, as they were MRD agents and he wasn’t entirely sure that Styrker wouldn’t attempt direct assassination. Or just stunning and removal to another location, as the conflict with Valentina had revealed that stunning did not set off his weapon’s self-destruct.

Shilpa’s approach drove most of the others further away, though whether out of curiosity, or dislike, he couldn’t tell. She, Alexander, and Viktor had been heads down in Avenger’s Tower, assisting with the research, strengthening the ties to the Avengers and, well, hiding, until he could get out of the hospital. And certain of them had been working on emergency plans with the team’s strategists.

Or, they had been.

Illyan nodded at her as she sat next to him.

“They’re examining the one whose chip I fried. They think they’re on the right path.”

“Good.”

“Viktor’s talking plans with Cap and Black Widow. I couldn’t stand listening to them talk contingencies any longer and Alex is in hog heaven playing with the geniuses.”

“Good,” Illyan repeated.

She obviously wanted to discuss something else and just needed to get the preliminaries out of the way. But then she didn’t move forward, instead, she just sat there, clearly uncomfortable.

“Would you like to talk about something?”

“What would I want to talk about?” Shilpa asked, with just a whisper of fear and anger in her voice.

“There’s any number of potential options. Putting aside external news, you might be angry that I sent you up against a millenia-old mutant in his area of expertise. Or ashamed that you weren’t able to win on your own. Or embarrassed that we thought our plan would work when it really, really wouldn’t without the involvement of the Avengers. Or mourning the dead and injured. Or conflicted about the fact that you killed En Sabah Nur. Or annoyed that you had to spend so long playing politics with the press. Or disturbed to realize that we were forced on the defensive, twice in a row. Or upset by how close this came to ending in all our deaths. Or sad to realize how very, very mortal, and defeatable we all are? There’s a million ways to feel about a situation like this one and none of them are wrong.”

“But some are less productive than others.”

“Yes. The problem is that varies from person to person. I’ve known folks who wallowed in mourning quite extravagantly and self-indulgently and folks who took that sorrow and forged it into a motivation which let them accomplish incredible things. But we’re evading the issue,” Illyan carefully didn’t make it a question.

“Does it get easier?”

“Killing people?”

She nodded, without looking at him.

“It does. Which is something you have to watch out for.”

“Huh?”

“It’s easy to become hypnotized by the ‘hard choice’ that only you can make.”

She considered that and silence stretched.

He gave her a little more. “What you did was necessary and will save lives. I don’t know if that helps, but it’s true. I also don’t know if this helps, but the first time I killed someone was much less worthy and impressive.”

She finally looked at him.

“I’m not trying to one-up, or down you, Shilpa. But I figure knowing other people went through it might help.”

“What happened?”

“I was a young, stupid lieutenant on Komarr, before I went off to Illyrica. I and a couple other officers who’d been promoted to lieutenant were celebrating and quite drunk. A very pretty girl gave us directions to a party. It turned out to be an ambush. The worst part is it wasn’t even political and they weren’t planning to kill us. It was just going to be a robbery, but things went very wrong. One of them lost a stunner and pulled a knife and lunged at me. I’m pretty sure that he just meant to hold me hostage to get the others to stop fighting, but I saw a blade coming at me and I turned the knife back on him.”

“That’s not the same thing at all!” she snapped, though she was looking at him now.

“No, it’s not. And my method of working through it was to get myself reassigned as far away from Komarr as I could. Which was not a good solution.”

“No,” she agreed, trying to absorb the notion of Illyan as a drunken young man, making quite a few mistakes, despite being older than she was now.

“I’ve seen a lot of people go through this over the years. Some couldn’t handle it. Some could. I got pretty good at being able to tell the difference.” That wasn’t true at all. It hadn’t proven nearly that predictable. But what he had seen was that believing you could and would get through it meant that you did. Mostly. “And you, Shilpa Khatri, will get through this.”

She frowned at him. “And what does that make me? A killer?”

No, he’d made her that. Or at least put her in the place where she’d make that of herself, but that wouldn’t help. Nor would wallowing in guilt. So, this time, he gave her the truth. “It makes you someone with the capacity to kill and keep moving. Some can, some can’t, it never had broader connections to anything that I ever saw. I’ve known incredibly tough people who couldn’t, and incredibly gentle ones who could. It’s a capacity, not a necessity. The morality comes from how you use that capacity. And you used it to save my life.”

That got a tiny nod.

“And as I don’t think I said it before, thank you for saving my life.”

She nodded more deeply. “I don’t think I ever said it, but thank you for saving mine.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

She frowned. “I have to go home, don’t I?”

That was a sudden change in subject, and he honestly didn’t know how she’d got there at this moment, but he thought he knew the underlying reason. “Do you?”

“My brother’s just going through puberty now and whatever my parents did, he didn’t do anything wrong. And I’ve got other sibs…”

 “Oh, indeed. And unfortunately, all my influence with the relevant MRD offices can do is keep them away from your family. And they have not reached the point where they could be trusted with something like this. My question wasn’t ‘do you need to go there,’ but rather ‘is it still home’?”

That was mostly a distraction. But it got her thinking. And a bit more distraction.

“Just something to think about. Also, figure out who can back you up. You’re probably almost as high priority a target as I am to Genosha.”

“Alex is needed here. Viktor?” there was still a hint of the student in her.

Illyan nodded. “More than one person please. But Viktor’s a good start.”

“Who else can I get?”

“Borrow someone from the Avengers. You might pay a visit to the local MRD office afterwards and see about making some new contacts. You certainly have a unique angle on that office and building some additional contacts can only be good.”

She frowned, but nodded and started to rise, distracted by her new tasks. Then thought it a bit more thoroughly. “What if he is a mutant?”

“A good question, what if he is a mutant?”

“I’ve had a long day, can’t you just tell me the answer?”

“Oh, but I don’t know the answer. There are several options, which you take will depend on you and him and his parents,” Illyan noted, shifting slightly. “However, it should not be resource limited,” he produced a surprisingly heavy credit card and passed it over.

Illyan was once again surprised to get a hug before Shilpa stalked out of the room. That had gone better than he’d feared. He pulled out his phone and continued calling the agents he’d sent after Genoshan slaves. Ostensibly it was part of his investigation into the Genoshans, but the real point was to solidify his ties to those agents and his position as the deliverer of information, intelligence and missions.

The guards the MRD had on him heard it all, of course, but that was useful too.

Notes:

Looks like Simon's little ritual to sever those frayed ties between Shilpa and her family didn't really work. No surprises there, family is always hard. Hopefully his attempt to help her deal with killing someone will be more effective...

Comments and corrections are always welcome.

Chapter 5: By Family

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Mary’s parents were perfectly pleasant individuals. At least to everyone who hadn’t almost gotten their daughter killed. Illyan had mostly managed to avoid them through timing his visits and being a quite sneaky man. Unfortunately, Luo’s parents had just come in and needed someone to get them to the man. And with Shilpa still in India, Alex still heads down in the tower and Viktor off making sure Shilpa didn’t get kidnapped and enslaved, that left Illyan.

He didn’t drive, but at this point, he was under such heavy protection he didn’t need to. Indeed, several guards had to get out in order to allow Luo’s parents to get into the ridiculously large, armored, black vehicle they were transporting him in.

Mary’s father glared at him as he got Luo’s parents into his room. Fortunately, the man was conscious, so he was able to flee. They hadn’t held him responsible (as far as he could tell) and had been perfectly polite, but though their English was better than his Mandarin, the language barrier had been significant and the MRD had not provided a translator. Illyan’s own experience had played him false there as he was used to language problems being easily solvable with an electronic translator. That had made the ride over somewhat awkward, though probably quite entertaining as they basically had to play charades to attempt to figure out what they were discussing.

Illyan was fairly sure he’d managed to convey that (1) Luo was doing well and (2) Luo did not owe anything for his treatment, but not at all sure he’d successfully conveyed that they should contact him if they had any trouble, or the fact that their lodgings had been taken care of. Fortunately, Luo should be able to pass along those messages.

But Mary’s father was standing outside the room, clearly waiting for the confrontation Illyan had been trying to avoid. The man’s name was John, and he had the big, bluff look of a former athlete going soft, but fighting it. He was a decade younger than Illyan, which meant he’d had Mary quite young, but his wife was the same age. Young love that had survived into late middle age, that was quite nice. Less nice was the expression on the man’s face.

The conversation that followed was as unpleasant as it was long, but was more about venting than any actual content. Illyan waited, blandly professional as the man raved about his daughter’s injuries and condition and Illyan’s failure to protect her. He declined to argue back, as that just would have prolonged the encounter and allowed the man to work himself into an even greater fury, maybe to the point of forcing actual violence.

It was hard to argue with a wall, but John managed for a surprisingly long time, before finally concluding on “Don’t you have anything to say?”

“Mr. Anderson, your daughter made her choices and took her risks in order to accomplish something I believed nearly impossible, killing Apocalypse. I supported her to the best of my ability,” John’s mouth opened, but a raised hand cut him off, “which, yes, was insufficient to prevent all harm. But she succeeded. We succeeded. And the monster who murdered her friends is dead. She made her choices and I honor that. If you need to yell at someone about it, then so be it.”

The man stepped forward, as did Illyan’s guards. They might not like him, but they weren’t about to allow him to be injured on their watch.

“I don’t like your fucking face.”

Illyan didn’t respond.

“I don’t like your fucking words either.”

Illyan still didn’t respond.

“But you’re fucking right. But that’s my baby girl lying in there. So, fuck you. And I’m fucking sorry. And fuck you.”

“Alas, you’re not my type.”

The man stared for a long moment, then the sheer incongruity of it broke him and he began to laugh, folding inward, then sinking to the floor. Illyan went with him as the laughter turned to tears. John shook off a comforting hand and fled. Illyan honestly didn’t know if he’d helped or hurt there.


Shilpa was waiting in his temporary offices as Illyan shed his guards. The new New York offices were more heavily defended and Illyan was practically running them. A team from headquarters had come in and helped set up the new offices, but between the casualties and other operations, there simply weren’t that many senior agents available. And the New York office was a terrible command.

Besides being basically the center of the ‘superhero’ world, it was also the focus of massive news organizations and businesses. Any action would get massive attention, maybe lawsuits and the potential for superhero involvement was very high.

 It was a post which both attracted and destroyed ambitious agents. At least until the former commander, who’d focused entirely on keeping the office quiet and out of the news, had taken over. But with her dead and the old MRD offices having to be rebuilt entirely, there was little reason for anyone else to take over. Not when Illyan could and was doing the job.

He didn’t have the actual rank, but everyone did what he said. It was worse than it should have been, but also oddly familiar. He was glad of the distraction of Shilpa’s presence and pleased she was back in the country.

Her expression was stormy, however.

“Welcome back, Shilpa,” he said, walking over to his desk. The cane wasn’t exactly necessary, but it was advisable.

“They’re all mutants,” she said flatly.

Illyan paused for a moment, then assumed she’d disabled the security cameras, so there would be no recording of this conversation.

“Your siblings?”

“My entire family.”

Illyan felt his eyebrows rise, “Including your parents?”

“Yes.”

“Did they know?” Illyan asked.

“My parents did. At least about themselves. It’s why they turned me in. To keep the investigation away from themselves,” her voice was ice over lava, but she was pacing back and forth, energy pouring off her.

“Well, that was a deeply stupid plan,” Illyan noted blandly.

She glared over at him, pausing for a moment. Then her eyes narrowed and her shoulder’s slumped. “You’re right.” She slumped into the chair opposite him. “I was so focused on how fucking evil it was that it didn’t occur to me how stupid it was.”

“Are they stupid people?”

“No,” she admitted.

Illyan nodded slightly and waited for her to consider what that meant.

“Why would they do that?”

“A good question. Why would they do something so stupid?”

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “I don’t know. Do you?”

“I could guess, but that would be all it was.”

“The only people who really know are them. Well, unless I can dig up a telepath.” Illyan gave her a flat stare, which she felt despite her eyes being closed and she shrugged. “Kidding, kidding.”

Illyan waited.

“I tried to ask, but it just blew up into a massive argument.”

“The great benefit of writing is that you have time to figure out exactly what you want to say and say it,” Illyan noted.

“Texting is way too much pressure and not secure.”

Illyan stared at her blankly for a moment. “Writing a letter has a lot of advantages.”

It was her turn to stare at him blankly. “A letter?”

Illyan nodded. “The great thing about a letter is that any response takes time to draft and time to send, which creates space to calm down, consider and reconsider before sending it. You’d still need to address security, but there are ways to handle that.”

She paused, but shrugged. “Being slower is almost never good, but maybe here it is. We’ll talk.”

“And your family is safe?”

“Mostly. I leaned on the local office and dropped some bugs in their systems. I should know if they’re planning anything, but my family is under the protection of a couple of local groups. Apparently, the local mutants have a sort of…gang? Mutual protection society? Neighborhood watch? It’s not really clear. I think it’s more like a neighborhood watch, but I find the idea of my nice middle-class parents as gang members funny.”

“They’re aware of the risk?”

“Oh, yes. I put in an updated security system and a few other precautions and suggested they come here, or accept additional help, but it’s not like I could force them to accept MRD protection, or anything.”

Illyan’s kept his expression bland. “In fact, you could. At this juncture you are significantly more powerful, at least in a non-superpowered sense, than they are.”

She blinked at that, considering for a long moment. “You’re not telling me to do it though?’

“No. It would almost certainly be a mistake. But the first step to using power responsibly is knowing you have it. This is one of the advantages of a military or aristocratic hierarchy, power is, mostly, made visible and legible, which is often not the case in more bureaucratic, or informal power structures.”

She nodded seriously at that and pushed herself to her feet, not as defeated as when she’d sat down, or as manic as she’d started, but he wasn’t sure if he’d actually helped. “Thanks.”

She headed for the door, as he accepted her gratitude and hoped he deserved it.

When she got to the door, she paused for a moment. “Would you be willing to read a letter before I sent it?”

“Of course, Shilpa,” Illyan agreed.

She thanked him again and fled before he could accept her thanks this time.


Illyan despised eating food prepared specifically for him by people he did not know, under unguarded conditions. But there was no way around this. Luo’s mother had done the cooking, with some assistance from Mary’s mother. The discovery that the American woman spoke Mandarin was something of a surprise, but had simplified the communication issues. The entire team was here. Someone had pried Alex out of the lab, though he was still talking about all the progress the team had made to anyone who was interested. Or anyone who happened to be in earshot, regardless of their level of interest.

Viktor, who’d heard this all several times was merrily socializing with John, as they discussed local beers and how inferior the New York ones were to Russian or Coloradan beers. Mary herself was in a wheelchair, but had pulled herself away from her parents to sit with Luo and discuss how much they hated the hospital and their physical therapists.

Shilpa was standing in the corner, looking awkwardly at her phone. He’d been pleased that she’d handled the hospital’s complaints about this little get-together without his needing to be involved. But it still wasn’t entirely easy with the civilians present, as they weren’t terribly fond of mutants.

But she joined everyone at the table as the pair of mothers came in, having dragooned several hospital staff into assisting them in carrying the food from the car and began setting up the table. It was an impressive spread and Illyan was actually hungry. And the women hadn’t been entirely unguarded. Whatever the MRD felt about him and Shilpa, protecting the family of their own agents was something they were eager to do.

Mary’s mother said grace as they all awkwardly waited, then dug in. It wasn’t until after dinner that Illyan found himself being stalked by two women, about his own age.

Luo’s mother, Biyu, was a tiny woman, a little older than himself, but her life had worn on her even more than his on him. Her short hair was still dark, but her age showed in the lines of her face, the stiffness of her movement, and the depth of her gaze.

Mary’s mother, Katie, was taller than him, and a good decade younger. Also, she wore her age more lightly. Long blonde hair was braided tightly back, and she had the fit frame of someone who exercised consistently. There was just a hint of Mary’s brutal practicality in her, but none of the tactical training or experience.

He could have escaped, but instead allowed himself to be cornered by the pair of them.

“What can I do for you, ladies?” he asked, though they probably did not appreciate the social promotion.

“They want to go back to work, as soon as they can,” Katie said. She said something in Mandarin, and Biyu nodded and responded in the same language. Katie continued with a slight frown, “And we respect that decision. We’re proud to have raised such…”

“Heroes?” Illyan offered as she was clearly searching for the right word.

“But we’d like them not to end up as dead heroes.”

“As would I.”

There was another pause for translation.

“Luo is her only child. He isn’t married. He’s the only one who can carry on the family name. Mary’s got two younger brothers, but they’re talking about joining the MRD.”

“If you’re asking if Luo and Mary will be safe in future, they will be as safe as I can make them, while completing the mission we all swore to achieve,” Illyan said. That last part was a lie. None of them had sworn to achieve it. At least not as far as he knew. But Barrayaran idiom had slipped out.

Katie translated his words. “That’s not terribly comforting.”

“Would you prefer I lie to you?”

“I’d prefer they were safer than that.”

“They may well be. It will depend how well they recover and if they’re cleared for field duty again. However, as you may have noticed, being an office worker is not safe. Indeed, nothing is actually safe. Non-MRD people die every day.”

“Not at the same rate,” Katie snapped, translating the response for Biyu.

That was true.

“What are you asking me to do, ladies? Fire them? Reassign them somewhere safe and bring in someone else to be at risk?”

Biyu snapped something when that was translated. Katie balked, but Biyu insisted. “Reassign them somewhere else.”

“I won’t do that.”

Biyu spat at his shoes and walked over to her husband. Katie didn’t spit at him, but neither did she apologize, instead she followed her friend away, transparently glad that the other woman had said it, not her.

That was unpleasant. And wildly outside his experience. The parents he’d spoken to in the past had been proud of their children who served and though some had been upset about injuries or casualties, it wasn’t like that. There certainly were some people who pulled strings to get their children into, or out of, combat. Indeed, he was all too aware that Alys had ensured that Ivan was as far from combat as could be managed.

Such people did not end up in ImpSec, however, so he was not used to such problems. Well, all of life is a learning experience.

Notes:

I went for something a bit less pro forma than the face slap from the spouse/parents and tried to take it in an original and less cliched direction, while still focusing on something that fiction tends to gloss over. Let me know how you think it worked.

Comments and corrections always welcome.

Chapter 6: By War

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The news came when Illyan was recovered, Luo was mostly recovered, and Mary was somewhat recovered. But they were going to have to sit this out.

Of course, so was everyone else in the MRD. They could not be seen to act within Genosha, or against Genosha, as it was not a signatory to the MRD treaties. However, the discovery of a cure for the Genoshan mind control process was a massive step forward.

The rapid conversion of the cure into an aerosol, deployable by gas grenade, or other such attack (or by dart/dart gun) shifted the balance of power somewhat, but it could still be defended against via gas mask, or other such protection. Which meant that either subterfuge, or an overwhelming first strike would be needed to avoid a grinding war of attrition, which he honestly doubted the Brotherhood or X-Men could win, at least on their own.

All of which depended on their getting the cure. That was easily enough handled, though Illyan did have to explain, at some length that no, James couldn’t just quit right in front of him and his team, they’d have to arrest him if he did that. He needed to be at least a little sneakier about it than that. And thus were the X-Men equipped with the cure.

To equip the Brotherhood, he needed to make contact with Raven, which was easier said than done as he was entirely at her mercy for contacts. And given the repeated attempts on his life or freedom, he was, in fact, creating very few openings for her to get to him. So, he created a few more, accepting more meetings with outside parties, though security remained tight.

It didn’t take long for a reporter from some influential local newsheet who was writing a piece on the death of En Sabah Nur (creatively titled ‘Apocalypse Averted’) to get permission for an interview, only for Raven to show up in her place. Not that it was obvious, the woman’s skills were impeccable, but as soon as they were alone, she pulled out her own surveillance jammers and activated them, before revealing herself.

That was unfortunate. He wondered how in the world anyone had copied his tech, but that wasn’t a solvable problem at the moment.

“You know why I’m here?”

Illyan shrugged and pulled the samples of the aerosolized curative he’d stolen from Wolverine’s big pile of the stuff. “I have some ideas, yes.”

“I already stole that from the X-Men.”

“Then I have less idea,” Illyan noted, as he set the samples down on the table between them. Despite her words, she did sweep the additional samples away.

“I’m here to…terminate our relationship.”

Illyan did not tense at that, nor did he reach for his weapons, though there was a clear and unpleasant implication as to how she was going to do that. “And why would you wish to do that?”

“Because, Genosha has to take priority over my plans, and we can’t afford to lose any more people. Nor can I afford to spend any more time on you.”

Illyan nodded slightly. “So, are the X-Men and Brotherhood going to coordinate, or are you planning to trip all over one another?”

She gave him a flat look. “Coordinate. We don’t have much choice, given the numbers.”

Illyan nodded even more slightly. “And after you win?”

“If you’re asking if we’re planning to just conquer a country then run away with a couple thousand traumatized ex-slaves to try to hide…no, you’re not asking that.” She sighed heavily. “Professor X and Magneto. The dynamic duo, back together again,” the wry twist of her lips hid genuine bitterness.

“Two-person leadership is inherently unstable, when compared with either one person, or three.”

“The history of triumvirates is not exactly encouraging, but you’re not wrong,” Raven admitted. “But this won’t do it,” she produced the extra samples in long, dexterous, blue fingers, then made them vanish again.

“What would?”

“Huh?”

“What would you need to make up the third leg of this proposed triumvirate?”

“There’s no time.” lllyan simply waited until Raven gave up and shrugged. “I’d need people—mutants. Quite a few, quite powerful and quite loyal. And I’d need to make a splash, a big one. But there’s no time for any of that.”

Illyan ignored that last part. “And if you were the third leg of this triumvirate, what would you do after you win?”

She frowned at him, but answered. “Professor X would make it a democracy and thirty seconds later the baselines would vote to re-enslave us.”

“Civil strife at best, civil war at worst and profoundly counterproductive to my goals.”

“Magneto would either kill them all, or at best force them off the island. He’s already planning his mutant’s only nation.”

“Less counterproductive to my goals, but wildly disruptive if SHIELD or the MRD get involved. But you still haven’t said what you’d do.”

She’d been considering that question. Which was why she’d walked through the problem with the others’ plans. What would she do, if she had the power? She’d shied away from that question because it hurt when she knew she’d missed her chance, but confronted directly with it, she talked through it. “Genosha forfeited its right to exist by enslaving my people. But genocide or ethnic cleansing will have too many negative consequences. So, fuck it, take the place over. It’s not exactly a democracy now. Free the slaves and put mutants on the top of the hierarchy, not the bottom. Don’t enslave anyone, but we’re in charge now. You don’t like it, well there’s the door.”

“Basically, create a new aristocracy?” Illyan asked, wondering if she’d pushed that idea just based on what she’d probably learned about him via the X-Men.

“Pretty much, but this is all academic. No one’s giving me a seat at the table and I don’t have the muscle to force…” her voice trailed off as Illyan’s eyes narrowed on her and she felt the weight of his full and undivided focus for the first time in their relationship. She hadn’t even realized how dissipated he usually was, focused on the entire world. For the first time, she truly felt in her bones that this was the spymaster who’d run galaxy wide intelligence operations out of his head for decades.

“Are you lying to me, Raven?” his voice was a blade, all emotion, all personality drained out of it like he was the sociopathic robot the X-Men’s guest kept whining about. This was a test, obviously so, a threat, slightly less obviously so, and maybe even something more she couldn’t figure out. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t confident in her ability to cheat her way out of a test, slide her way around a threat, or identify an unknown message.

“No,” she said simply and honestly.

Suddenly the focus broke and Illyan smiled again. “Good. Then I have what you need.”


Twenty minutes later, Mystique made a daring escape out of the new MRD offices, diving through a fifth story window (blown out by a microexplosive before she hit it) and escaping before the guards could pursue.

Shilpa was sent to retrieve the actual reporter from the trunk, making a friend in the process, while Illyan explained that Mystique had subtly questioned him, then delivered a warning from the Brotherhood when caught. “Stay away from Genosha.” It was all lies, but no one could prove that. Yet.

The next day, Shilpa paid a visit to Avenger’s Tower, with Illyan along. She was quite surprised when he followed her up to the rooms where the freed ex-slaves were staying. He didn’t visit them much. Several had been returned to their families, if they’d recently been kidnapped. But most of them had been slaves since childhood and had nowhere to go. At least so long as Genosha remained under the control of the Magistrates.

She visited them frequently, but it was honestly quite depressing. Many had been controled for years and their recovery was slow. Most of the others were constantly furious and some were almost catatonic without being forced to act by the chip. The strike group the Avengers had captured was mostly functional, but several of the recovered ‘sold’ slaves were in terrible shape.

And they didn’t have much in the way of hope. Sure, the cure was made and had leaked to the X-Men, but no one knew what was happening, or how long it would take. Some were already talking, quietly, about taking direct action against Genosha, but that would just get them killed and reveal what the scientists had accomplished.

Regardless, she was quite surprised to see that Dr. Ashley Kafka was also up there. She’d known the Avengers had brought in the psychiatrist to try to help, as she’d been quite successful at the Kiln, but she’d been sure that Kafka had gone back to the Kiln for a few days to deal with some issue.

She glanced over at Illyan. There was no way he would forget such a thing, but he remained entirely calm, despite the fact that the patients were gathered around Kafka in a rather disturbingly active way. Automatically, Shilpa took a step forward and her hand fell to the heavy stunner on her hip. As Illyan didn’t say anything, she did, “What’s going on here?”

“We’re going on a little trip,” Kafka said, but the voice was wrong. Shilpa ran through the possibilities. Possession, mind control, or a shapeshifter…Mystique was the most likely, given the situation, but there were other possibilities.

“That’s nice. You aren’t prisoners. As you have several teleporters, I assume you can manage your own transit?” Illyan asked politely, stepping forward and to the side so he was beside Shilpa. She stared over at him. Whatever this was, it was no surprise to him. Probably.

“Indeed, and I do appreciate the Avengers lending us these cure grenades and everything else we need,” the woman who wasn’t Kafka said with a very unpsychiatric smirk.

“Hardly everything,” Illyan glanced into the air. “Jarvis, could you please unseal the weapons locker here? I believe Dr. Kafka would like to examine some stunners.”

“Of course, sir,” the AI answered and a panel on the wall slid open revealing a number of heavy stunners. The mutants around Kafka quickly collected the weapons.

“Sir?” Shilpa asked.

“I would never stand in the way of someone who decided to go seek justice on their former enslavers, Agent Khatri. It’s unfortunate that no on-duty MRD agent can assist, but rules are rules.”

She stared at him for a moment, considering what he’d just said and what the ex-slaves were clearly about to do. They had teleporters who’d been to the processing facilities and could get them in. They had cure grenades and stunners. They had well-trained mutants with a wide range of powers.

But they didn’t have her. And the technopath they did have wasn’t as good as her. And none of their people had the training she had, the experience she had. And they weren’t her. She couldn’t just stand by and do nothing, but she also couldn’t betray Simon. He’d saved her life so many times. Helped her become what she was. Helped her see deeper and more subtly—and she realized what he’d just said and thought for a moment, glancing at her phone.

Illyan’s phone beeped at him. He pulled it out, glanced at it and pushed a few commands. “Your leave request is approved, Shilpa. I will need your badge and stunner.”

She passed them over, though removing the badge from the chain around her neck was surprisingly hard. She was even more surprised when Illyan’s own belt came off and was passed over to her, weapons and all.

She looked at him quizzically. “Personal equipment. I can loan it to whomever I wish.”

“Thank you.”

“Be careful on your vacation, Shilpa.”

Her smile was a cruel thing. “Oh, we’re not the ones who need to be careful.”

Notes:

Comments and critiques always welcome...

Chapter 7: By Reporters

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Illyan was generally pleased. He’d successfully delayed the transfer of prisoners out of the Pit (the sole MRD prison on the African continent) until after Genosha had fallen. He still wasn’t certain that Stryker had intended to feed them the entire prison’s worth of mutants, but it had been a possibility, either that, or baiting them into an escape attempt which could end in a massacre. Either way, with the threat of Genosha passed, there was no need to move the prisoners and whatever Stryker had been planning, it was dead in the water.

As were most of the Magistrates of Genosha. The only fly in the ointment was the escape of David “Genegineer” Moreau and Pieter “Wipeout” Nel. There was some sort of secret passage out of the bunker the man operated out of and he and the one freely loyal mutant had escaped. There was a lot of hunting going on for him, but Pieter’s powers blocked all mutant forms of detection.

The battle itself had been over quickly. The Genoshan military relied heavily, but not entirely on mutant slaves. The few units of baseline troops had been equipped with non-magnetic weapons and gear, as well as helmets modeled on Magneto’s own, which protected from telepathic intrusion and the mutant slaves integrated into their units had been equipped with gas masks and other protective equipment.

But in focusing so heavily on the heavy hitters who might end the battle in a single stroke, they’d ignored two things. The first was the vulnerability of the Genegineer’s base once a teleporter who’d been there was freed. All their fortifications against infiltration and assault were pointless given Shilpa and her team could simply appear inside, force or hack (mentally) their way through any obstacle and free the slaves by the dozen.

At the same time, the less overwhelmingly powerful mutants ripped through army units easily as they weren’t prepared for their more unusual powers. Magneto himself focused defensively, providing a swirling mass of metal that they couldn’t do anything about, but which absorbed their attention and Professor X used his abilities to minimize collateral damage by moving civilians away from the combat areas, or mind controlling the soon-to-be-ex-slaves.

Even worse, gas masks worked against gas grenades, but not against darts, or needles of the curative, which several mutants were equipped with. And every freed mutant not only weakened the Genoshans, it strengthened the invaders.

Pietro especially was just a nightmare for the Genoshans, as he could simply rush through a group, free all the mutants and incapacitate the soldiers before they could react. He was somewhat injured when a group was sacrificed to bait a trap for him (as the entire building exploded) but he would be fine in a few days.

Honestly, his and Wanda’s presence had been quite effective, but was now causing some problems. Which was why Illyan was only ‘generally’ pleased. The battle had been swift and decisive and its aftermath far less terrible than anyone else might have predicted.

Except that the presence of the X-Men/Brotherhood, and two (or three) Avengers all in the same place, drew massive amounts of attention. Illyan happened to know that most of the Avengers had, in fact, volunteered to participate and assist the X-Men. Natalia and Clint couldn’t, they were SHIELD agents (and either hadn’t thought of Illyan’s work around, or hadn’t chosen to use it) and Hank continued to be entirely research focused. He was unwilling to be militarily aggressive. But given the circumstances, they’d wanted to limit the participants to mutants. Pietro and Wanda probably weren’t pleased to be fighting alongside their father, but circumstance controlled the situation.

Which explained why he was, once again, speaking to reporters. At least this time it was just two of them and one was relatively friendly (rescuing her from the trunk of her car had helped). Which was apparently why there were two now. Though he wasn’t entirely sure if their presence was to make sure the original reporter wasn’t biased, or to ensure her safety.

Regardless, the whole thing had been arranged by his new administrative support officer, the redoubtable Maria Lopez, poached from the Seattle office, to help rebuild the administrative side of things here (if you can’t beat someone, hire them, was a bit of a motto for him, personally). Leaving him with a notable weakness only on the public affairs front, which was fine as he had his own plans for that and a nonentity was acceptable there. Unfortunately, he was entirely missing significant fiscal and legal expertise, but that was a problem for when he wasn’t doing public relations.

Illyan was sitting opposite the pair of them at a conference table. The public affairs officer that the MRD had finally scraped up was sitting beside him, but she’d been very clear she wasn’t going to speak up unless directly addressed as she wanted no part of this. The two reporters sat on the other side of the table. Monica Sobel and Karen McDonald could not have been more different if they tried. Monica was short, young, black and round. Karen was tall, only a few years younger than Illyan, white and almost skeletal. The only similarities between the women were their professional clothing and the visitors’ badges hanging around their necks.

Introductions were over and they were getting to the meat of the interview.

“What do you think about the takeover of Genosha?” Monica asked. Karen hadn’t said much of anything thus far.

“The MRD has no opinion on affairs within nontreaty nations.”

“And you?”

“I have no opinion while on the clock.”

“And off the clock?”

“In the current circumstances, I doubt I will be off the clock any time soon.”

Monica nodded sympathetically. “I’m sure this has been a busy time for you.” Illyan nodded as the reporter continued buttering him up and waited for the blow to fall.

It came from Karen. The other woman pulled out some pictures and passed one over. It showed Shilpa, casually stunning a man as a small group of unarmed men rushed her. “This was taken on Genosha. Can you explain why an agent of the MRD is participating in the overthrow of an unaligned nation?”

“How Agent Khatri chooses to spend her vacation is entirely her own choice. Personally, I would prefer something less energetic than overthrowing a slaving and raiding oligarchy. But I’m older and less noble than her.” The locals were absurdly approving of their democratic form of government, so reminding them that Genosha wasn’t a democracy now, might smooth the way for what it was becoming. The little self-deprecating joke at the end was pure showmanship, not precisely intended to distract from his total lack of surprise at the picture, but meant to confuse the issue. Did he know because he secretly sent her, or allowed her to go? Or had he simply heard about it before the reporters? Or had he not known at all, but was simply very good at covering for surprises. They couldn’t know—

“Did you send her there?” Karen pushed.

“I don’t decide where people go on their vacations.”

“Which doesn’t answer my question,” Karen noted.

“Indeed not.”

“Are you going to answer?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Well, let’s walk through the scenarios, shall we? Let’s say I did send her there. That would be illegal and a violation of various treaties. I’m hardly likely to admit that, am I?”

Karen shook her head. Though Monica spoke up, “Some people might think liberating slaves and overthrowing literal slave takers was a good enough reason to break a few rules.”

“Still not likely to admit it publicly, am I?”

She shook her head, regretfully.

“So, let’s say that I didn’t send her there and she went on her own. Well, that makes me look surprised and impotent. I’m hardly likely to admit that either.”

“So, you’re either a criminal or impotent?” Karen asked.

Illyan smiled blandly. “Unless you can think of a third option, those do seem to be the two available ones.”

“Well, an obvious one would be plausible deniability,” Monica pointed out.

“Indeed.”

“Or she could have been spying on the Brotherhood or X-Men,” Karen argued.

“Indeed.”

“But you’re just not going to answer that question?”

“Indeed not. I obviously want the answer to be secret, for good reasons or bad. I decline to play guessing games.”

Karen frowned slightly and produced a second set of pictures. These showed Pietro and Wanda. “What about the involvement of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver? I understand that part of their deal was that they would not affiliate with their father and the Brotherhood.”

“You’d need to speak to the Avengers regarding their staffing. However, I understand they have retired, though they may return.”

“So, the whole agreement is basically a sham, because the MRD can’t take on the Avengers?” Karen pushed.

Illyan cocked his head, as if confused. “Hardly, Ms. McDonald. The agreement between the MRD and the Avengers is simply a recognition of the reality that this world is in significant, ongoing danger and that protection must be our highest priority. For those who volunteer to fight those threats, a certain degree of latitude must be granted.”

“They’re above the law.”

“They’re sheltered from consequences so long as they are carrying out their community service,” Illyan countered Karen’s thrust.

“And that doesn’t offend you?”

Illyan looked at her, honestly perplexed and let it show a bit. “I’m not sure why anyone would be interested in my opinion, but no, it does not.”

“Well, I’m most interested, because I’d like to know more about the world, or the universe, you’re from, Agent Illyan,” Monica cut in.

“Oh?”

“As I’ve been investigating the attack, it became clear that Apocalypse was targeting you, personally.”

“Based on what he said, that appears to be true.”

“Why?”

“You’d have to ask him.” That started to prompt objections as the man was dead, but Illyan continued. “But how much do you know of En Sabah Nur’s goals?”

“He was a social Darwinist,” Monica argued.

“Indeed. He believed strength emerged solely from conflict. This explains both his general actions over the centuries and his total failure to have a broader impact, despite his near-immortality.”

“How so?”

“Regardless of his strength, his total unwillingness to cooperate and his preference for rewarding physical strength and inducing conflict amongst allies and subordinates left him a nonentity on the broader stage. He could not build anything, only destroy. And true strength requires building. Whether that is bonds of loyalty, factories, or political parties. En Sabah Nur never learned that and it’s why the Avengers and the MRD, working together, were able to stop him.” And kill him, but they were twitchy about that language here.

“And kill him,” Karen pointed out.

“Indeed. My apologies, I assumed you’d prefer euphemism.”

“But why would he be after you? I mean, yeah, cooperation beats the individual, we all watched the same My Little Pony growing up. Well, you didn’t, but you know what I mean,” Monica shifted them back onto topic before Karen could pursue that.

Illyan blinked at her. “In fact, I don’t. But as to the first question, based on what he was saying, it appears that he saw the shifts in baseline-mutant relations that have taken place over the last few years, and, as is his nature, chose to assume that it was the result of one person’s action and could be undone by challenging and defeating that person.”

“You,” Karen pushed.

“Indeed. I have been something of the face of internal reform at the MRD, but the more obvious reason he chose me is that at least theoretically, I could put up a fight. If he’d decided to murder MP Smallwood, that hardly would have proven anything, except that he was a murderer.”

“Then why hide behind HYDRA?” Monica asked.

“You’d have to ask him for certainty, but my guess would be that he consciously intended to test to see if I was ‘worthy’ in his view of fighting him personally. Unconsciously, he may well have realized that murdering me for seeking additional reforms to the MRD was potentially counterproductive, despite his unwillingness to be more directly deceptive.”

“And are your reform efforts worth risking your life and losing the lives of almost two dozen other agents?” Karen asked. The question was a trap, but an obvious one. He could evade in any number of ways.

“Yes.”

Both of them stared at him in surprise at that. Monica looked horrified, Karen intrigued.

“Oh, I’m sorry, was I supposed to evade and point out that I didn’t sacrifice them, En Sabah Nur chose to kill them? But that wasn’t the question. Is reforming the MRD to be able to accomplish its treaty-mandated goals worth my life and the lives of twenty-two agents? Yes, it is. That was the conclusion I reached when I joined and that they reached when they joined.”

There was a moment as the women considered that answer. Monica spoke first. “Why do you call Apocalypse that?”

“Because it’s his name.” Monica twitched in annoyance at that response.

“Why not call him Apocalypse?” Karen jumped in.

“Because it’s not his name.” They both twitched at that and Illyan smiled gently. “And it’s transparently false. He is not Apocalypse. As you can tell by the fact that he is dead, and we are not.”

“Ah.”

“More broadly, the use of pseudonyms for criminals lends itself to the mythologizing of those individuals. Indeed, your own paper reported on En Sabah Nur’s death by referring to him as a supervillain. He was not. He was a criminal and his name was En Sabah Nur, not Apocalypse.”

“Do you think your perspective is shaped by your status as an extra-dimensional refugee?” Monica asked.

“My perspective is undoubtedly shaped by all my experiences.” Illyan said blandly and settled in for a long sparring match. It was, indeed, a long sparring match, which only ended when his wristcom buzzed.

Notes:

Sorry folks, Simon didn't invade Genosha, so we don't get to see it...

Comments and critiques always welcome.

Chapter 8: By His Past

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Illyan excused himself and retreated to his private office as quickly as he could without causing a panic and answered the comm. It was just barely possible that Shilpa was using it, but the only other possibilities were even less likely. Or so he though.

The voice that came through demanded an authentication code. He gave it automatically and received the proper countersign.

“This is Illyan, with whom am I speaking?” he asked.

A moment passed as something happened, then Illyan heard a familiar voice. “Sir, glad to hear your voice, we thought you were dead.”

“So I’ve heard, Miles. So I’ve heard.”

Miles’s voice sharpened as he caught the implications of that. “From whom?”

“Someone who spoke with Marie Trogir.”

“Ah, she should be detained if you can do it safely, but we don’t know how long this will stay open and we had to charge the capacitors for a week to get it to open at all. Are you all right?”

“Mostly. This is an extremely dangerous dimension. Be extremely cautious before sending anyone through, or allowing anything back through.”

There was a pause. “Dimension?”

“Yes, it appears to be an alternate version of Earth, circa early 21st century.”

“Huh. Well, our drone is seeing some sort of warehouse? Label on the side seems to be in English, looks to say something about the Port of Los Angeles?”

“That sounds like where I came out.”

“Well, good. We were able to get the drone back, no problem for it, or its biological passenger. If you can get here, we can get you out, or we can send support through, if you’re in danger. But the portal is destabilizing.”

“The political situation here is complicated. I’ll prepare full reports for the next opening and a proposal for a path forward and we can—”

“Simon, it’s about to fail. We’ll be back ne—” Miles cut in and then was cut off.

Simon slowly sat down in his chair and tried to figure out what to do next, as he was knocked entirely off balance for the second time in as many years.

Notes:

Ready or not, the world turns...

Comments and critiques always welcome.

Chapter 9: By No One

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“This is the last piece of the puzzle,” Trask’s normal monotone was laced with excitement as he examined the readouts he was getting from Wipeout. The mutant had fled with the Genegineer, but they’d had to kill the scientist as he’d objected to their plans for Wipeout. Apparently, the mutant was secretly his son or something. Irrelevant, now that they had the nullifier mutant, they were almost to their goal.

“How long?”

“I don’t know exactly, but it’s no longer a question of if, but when. We will have our Sentinels of Humanity.”

Stryker grinned. More than a decade of research, lies, experimentation, vivisection, and embezzlement had finally given them what they needed. Even as the MRD writhed away from his control, he’d finally almost reached the point where he didn’t need to rely on fallible flesh to save humanity. It wouldn’t matter how many kumbaya moments Illyan manufactured in the press and the office, nothing would be able to stop the Sentinels once they were finished. It was time to stop playing with the man. Let him do what he wanted, soon it wouldn’t matter.

“But, what about Genosha? Should I be worried?” Trask asked.

“Not at all. It’s perfect,” Stryker’s smile was a cruel thing.

Trask looked confused, but the man was a scientist, not a soldier, or politician.

“If the mutants were spread out all over the place, our Sentinels would have to go everywhere. They’d be opposed by armies and other superpowered people.”

“But if they’re mostly in one country…”

“One country whose only defense is mutant power,” His smile grew vicious. “Let them gather all their eggs in one basket. Hell, I’ll even contribute a few. Then we’ll smash that basket with a fucking sledgehammer and solve all our problems at once.”

Notes:

Well, that's not ominous at all...

Comments and critiques are always welcome.

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