Shaw felt a cold knot of unease tighten in his stomach at Ernst's words.
Though his pride resisted believing in concepts like "cosmic will" or "luck," he knew his son wasn't one to exaggerate.
Ernst dealt in facts.
Finally, gritting his teeth, Shaw slammed his empty glass onto the table.
"Regardless, we've reached this point, and I won't give up. The board is set. If you're here to persuade me to stop, save your breath."
"I'm not asking you to give up," Ernst replied calmly, adjusting his cuffs.
"I am simply asking you to prepare yourself mentally for the possibility of failure. Arrogance is a blind spot. Join me on a short trip. I have something for you that will significantly increase your chances of survival."
Ernst signaled to the corner of the room. Azazel stepped out of the shadows.
"Skull Island," Ernst ordered.
Azazel grabbed them both.
BAMF.
The opulent lounge of the Hellfire Club vanished, replaced instantly by the sterile, humming environment of Ernst's underground base on Skull Island.
The first sight that met Shaw was the Rebirth Cradle.
The massive, glowing amber tanks bubbled with nutrient fluid, casting a warm, golden light across the cavernous laboratory.
"What is this?" Shaw asked, his eyes wide as he stepped toward the glass.
"The Cradle," Ernst said, walking beside him.
"It clones tissue and recalls the soul. It is, for all intents and purposes, a resurrection engine."
Shaw stared at his son, staggered by the revelation.
"You've had this for years and never told me? Ernst, with this, we are gods! We can have a second life. We can bring back."
"No," Ernst interrupted, his voice dropping to a dangerous, deadly serious pitch.
Shaw blinked, taken aback by the sudden chill in the room.
"We do not abuse this machine, Father," Ernst warned.
"Offending the entities that control death is not a risk I am willing to take lightly. I have already restrained my own actions to avoid unnecessary trouble with the cosmos. You get one life in this war. Make it count."
Shaw didn't fully comprehend the metaphysical dangers Ernst was hinting at, but he sensed the absolute gravity in his son's expression. He wisely decided to drop it.
He changed the topic, looking up at the ceiling.
"And the island above us? What else have you been hiding?"
"A village," Ernst said simply.
"Over five hundred mutants live on the surface."
Shaw was genuinely surprised and pleased.
"Five hundred? A private army!"
"A sanctuary," Ernst corrected.
"They use their abilities to help me with my research in exchange for necessities and safety. Some chose to erase their traumatic memories and let me forge new identities for them to return to normal life. Most just want to be left alone."
Ernst pulled up a holographic manifest on a nearby console.
"The majority are Class One and Two mutants. Useful, but not combative. There are a few Class Threes, and exactly one Class Four. A young man in his twenties. He is a genius doctor. His ability is pure cellular healing."
Shaw's eyes lit up with predatory ambition.
"A Class Four healer? I want him. Draft him into the Inner Circle immediately."
"No," Ernst rejected the idea flatly.
"Ernst, think of the tactical advantage, "
"I said no," Ernst repeated, turning off the hologram.
"The mutants on this island chose to stay here because they have experienced too much suffering at the hands of humanity."
"They are unwilling to return to a world that made them miserable. I will bring our injured here for treatment, but I will not force them to leave. They are my assets, not your soldiers."
Shaw frowned, but he reluctantly nodded. Ernst had brought him here for a different purpose anyway, and the Cradle and the village were merely incidental.
"Fine. Then what did you want to show me?" Shaw asked.
Ernst led Shaw past the medical bays and stood outside a heavy, reinforced vault door. He punched in a sequence on the keypad.
The heavy steel door hissed and slid open automatically.
Inside the armory hung dozens of peculiar items.
But dominating the room, suspended on iron frames, were twenty figures. They were over two meters tall, their bodies sleek and slender, covered in dark, metallic scales.
They had no mouths or noses, just two glowing optical sensors on their heads.
"Are these... robots?" Shaw asked, stepping closer.
Ernst snapped his fingers.
Crack.
The tall figures split open down the center of the abdomen, revealing a hollow, padded interior.
"It's a one-piece battle suit," Ernst explained.
"I call it the Mutant Armor. It is inspired by the genetics of Mystique, the shapeshifter. After cracking her genetic secret, I synthesized it with liquid-metal robotics. I upgraded it to replicate and adapt to the abilities of other mutants."
It was Ernst's own version of the Sentinel, but instead of being autonomous hunters, they were wearable weapons.
Ernst stepped into an open suit to demonstrate. The armor sealed around him seamlessly.
"It connects directly to the neural network," Ernst's voice projected clearly from the suit's external speakers.
"It reads your brainwaves."
Instantly, the dark scales of the suit shifted. They turned to gleaming, impenetrable metal. Then, they shifted again, turning into flawless, translucent diamond.
A moment later, the suit burst into harmless, controlled flames, and then frosted over with thick ice.
Finally, a pair of metallic wings extended from the back.
Ernst stepped out of the suit as it returned to its default scaled appearance.
Shaw was utterly fascinated. He looked at the ever-changing armor with undisguised greed.
"This changes everything," Shaw breathed, running a hand over the scales.
"The production cost? The speed? If we can mass-produce these, we can outfit tens of thousands within half a year."
"There are only twenty sets here," Ernst cautioned.
"These are the 'hardcover' editions. The prototypes. Yes, if we simplified the design, we could mass-produce them without impacting our other industries. But having more battle suits is futile."
"Why?"
"Because there aren't enough loyal mutants to operate them yet," Ernst explained patiently.
"Besides, revealing technology of this magnitude right now would trigger an immediate, all-out war between mutants and humans before we are ready. Worse, internal conflicts among mutants could escalate into a civil war over who controls these suits. They are a deterrent, not standard infantry gear."
Shaw nodded slowly, understanding the logic. It made him even more determined to implement his plan, to force the mutation of the human race, unite all mutants, and then outfit them with his son's technology.
"Take one," Ernst offered.
"The most advanced model."
Shaw didn't hesitate. He chose the lead suit, stepping into the hollow frame.
As the armor sealed around him, it retracted, forming a sleek, protective skin underneath his normal clothes, topped with a specialized telepathy-blocking head shield.
Returning to the Hellfire Club with the mutant suit hidden beneath his tailored jacket, Shaw felt invincible.
He envisioned dominating the entire Earth, standing at the vanguard of a new, perfect future.
Ernst, watching him go, let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Despite years of Shaw practicing Ernst's energy absorption and spiritual strengthening methods, his father's physical body wasn't truly immortal.
But now, with the battle suit providing an adaptive layer of protection and an automatic defense function, any physical attempts to harm him would be thwarted.
In Ernst's memory of the original timeline, Shaw's death at the hands of Magneto was due to sheer carelessness and the loss of his psychic-blocking helmet.
Now, Ernst's armor had built-in psychic defense.
Combined with the meditation Ernst had taught him, Charles Xavier's telepathy would be entirely useless against him.
The board was secure.
As the day of the plan's implementation approached, Shaw threw himself into his work.
He was in daily contact with high-level government officials, leveraging threats, bribes, and blackmail.
Ernst's background calculations, combined with the Black Queen's sudden influx of funding, eased the pressure considerably.
Azazel became Shaw's personal, untraceable transport, teleporting the Black King around the globe to orchestrate the impending crisis.
Ernst remained in the shadows. He openly admitted his lack of interest in the petty squabbles of politicians.
He sat back, running his calculations, refining his own body, and patiently waiting for the right moment.
That moment finally arrived a few weeks later, when Azazel returned with a brief report.
Shaw was scheduled to meet a man named Colonel Hendry at a Hellfire Club stronghold in Las Vegas.
Ernst smiled, looking out over the London fog from his castle window.
The gears of history were finally turning.
-------------
Author's Note:
Do you want to read 25+ Chapters ahead right now?
Stop waiting. Come over to the dark side. We have cookies, advanced chapters, and very, very detailed 'plot.'
patreon.com/
Dark_sym