[2009 – October]
Listening to Emma as she told me about the 'vaccine' and its origins, I naturally remembered that in one of the X-Men movies, a similar plot has unfolded itself. Due to the jumbled timeline though, things were very different now than they had been in the movie.
Still, this gave me a rough understanding of the situation.
I wasn't too surprised by the existence of the 'vaccine' itself though as I was sure that many secret facilities all around the world were working on something similar.
In fact, the Sentinels that Trask Enterprises had developed in the alternate timelines were much much greater threats to mutantkind if one spoke about a direct conflict. They were artificial intelligent weapons that could adapt to the abilities of the mutants that they faced and even Omega-level mutants could be killed by the more advanced versions of these weapons.
From how I saw it, the greatest threat that the 'vaccine' posed to mutantkind was not as a special bio-chemical weapon in combat but as a tool to exterminate the 'spirit' of the mutant race.
After the Second World War, open conflicts between countries had become rarer in the world. They obviously didn't disappear but for the most part, modern society in the first-rate countries has forgotten the true terrors of war.
What has replaced these open conflicts were cultural wars and propaganda. The various governments and other powerful factions had learned that with time, they could control society by influencing cultural developments and stirring it in the directions that they favored.
As such, the 'vaccine's' greatest threat was that it could be used to depict mutants as nothing but aberrations of normal humans that need to be 'cured'.
This would severely damage the self-portrayal of mutantkind as its own race, causing mutants to feel like outcasts and influencing them to strongly reject their identity as members of the mutant race, which would eventually lead to them taking the 'vaccine' to become 'normal' and 'human'.
The problem was that even now the discrimination against mutants was very severe, even though the government had not yet set out to prosecute them openly.
The 'Mutant Registration Act' has not been made law thanks to Xavier's influence and decades of hard work, as well as the alliance forced by him, Erik, and Emma. But in case that it would be enforced alongside the 'vaccine', the mutant race would most likely suffer a blow that may be impossible to recover from.
Still, all that was only important for normal mutants, it had little impact on me personally.
Even if I had at first been a mutant, I was now a Realm Lord. My strength wasn't something that could be taken from me with a vial of 'medicine' anymore.
Not to mention that even Magneto's power had only been temporarily affected by the vial in the movies as it was shown in the scene at the end that he had regained his ability to influence the magnetic field. It was a rather memorable scene, so I remembered this clearly.
And in the end, he was just a mature Omega-level mutant, whom I could crush with a single look at this point in time.
So while there was no reason to get involved from a personal standpoint, it was still somewhat impossible for me to just stand by and watch as the mutant race suffered such a calamity.
Jean, Emma, Laura, Celeste, Pietro, Ellie, Yukio, and the Hellions were all mutants, after all. Even Christian and Cordelia had mutant abilities, even if their mutations were special and did not grant them any offensive abilities.
As a life form, I was a higher being but my lover, my family, and my closest friends were all mutants, which meant that none of them would be able to escape prosecution when the time came.
And even if they would not be forced to take the 'vaccine' through various circumstances, I had no desire to sit by and watch as the world called those that I cared about 'sick' or a 'scourge'. Nor did I want to watch them be killed by Sentinels.
That said, I was not yet sure how I should involve myself in this conflict in the most appropriate way.
Naturally, I considered using absolute force. I was the incarnation of Darkforce so I was naturally inclined to just reduce Trask Enterprises to ashes and dust, removing the threat that they posed to those close to me.
Still, there was also a part of me that just wanted to stay away from all this drama by simply ensuring the safety of those close to me. It would be an easy thing to do, after all, my barriers being enough to shield them even from nuclear warheads not to mention some syringes.
I understood that the conflict between humanity and mutantkind was not something that could be solved by destroying a single company and killing all those involved with them.
Innumerable groups were searching for ways to neutralize the threat that mutants posed to their power as the individual potential of members of the mutant race was a clear danger to humans as a ruling faction of Earth.
Just Erik alone had most countries' governments on the edge since he was quite literally a humanoid city destroyer, his power making him uncontrollable. For decades, he had been a target for elimination in most countries' eyes but the only result of this endless pursuit was a mountain of corpses that proved again and again that Omega-level mutants should not be allowed to mature.
Pondering what to do for a few moments, I decided to stay my hand for now and wait for Xavier's and Erik's reaction.
I knew that Emma at least leaned towards eliminating this problem at its root, which would most likely overlap with Erik's intention.
The difference though was that Emma would most certainly avoid an open conflict to do so since a split between the races was not in her interest, the consequences of such being too unpredictable.
"I will join you for the meeting.", I stated quietly while looking at Emma, and I could sense her relief at my words in the way her posture shifted minutely and her breathing rhythm and heartbeat changed to a frequency that indicated less inner tension.
And just as she was thanking me, recognizing that I did not intend to let her face this threat by herself, I sensed a peculiar shift in the Darkforce Dimension, its origin being New York City itself.
An unknown presence was channeling a minute amount of Darkforce.
This in itself was not something rare as an uncountable number of living beings in this Universe did the same through various means, among them espers, sorcerers, shamans, technologically advanced races, and many others. Some mutants also innately awakened a connection to my Realm.
And since my very soul had fused with the nexus core of the Darkforce Dimension, I knew about all of them and I allowed them to do so since their actions increased the strength of the Darkforce Dimension.
I did, however, not interact with any of them directly as I did not want to involve myself in their fate. Their borrowing of my immeasurable strength was nothing but a transaction.
If they paid the necessary price, they would receive what they sought. If they did not pay the necessary price, then the only response would be eternal silence.
Now though, a mutant not far away from me had awakened his connection to the Darkforce Dimension. And as my eyes flickered with white light, I realized that this unfamiliar mutant was a rather special case indeed, my inhuman instincts having indicated such before.
"A mutant awakened a connection to your dimension? You told me that something like this was rather common.", Emma reacted after I voiced out my discovery, "Why is this one special?"
Smiling, I couldn't help but admire my sister's sharp intuition as she had immediately realized that my interest in this matter signified that this was a somewhat abnormal case.
"This one is special because his awakening was not natural.", I replied while continuing to gaze in the distance, white flames burning in my eyes, "Someone used an experimental drug to forcefully awaken his mutant potential."