My name is Charles Xavier...
For the past eight months I've been held captive, by a man calling himself Bastion. He's been coming into my cell the entire time, and informing me of the deaths of each one of my students. As you can imagine, I've been less than inclined to believe him. I had felt that he was bluffing, trying to break my resolve. I believed him to be a fraud... a paper tiger if you will. Two days ago, I was proved wrong. It was two days ago that I felt my oldest friend and greatest enemy die. When Erik Lehnsherr (known to most others as the mutant terrorist Magneto) left this world, I felt it. I don't know why of all people, I felt him die, but his death brought back my powers... the powers I'd thought lost forever. Maybe we still shared a connection from the Onslaught tragedy. I don't know, perhaps I never will. I do know however that two days ago I used these powers to escape. I do know that I crossed a line I swore I never would when I used my powers to make one of the guards to my cell aid me in my escape. I tell myself that it was the only way I could save the X-men. That taking over that man's mind was the only way. I left him behind at the Santa Fe airport yesterday, and used my powers once again, to conceal myself on a flight to New York City. This evening I made it into the mansion using the old Morlock tunnels. As I made my slowly, though the empty mansion I knew something was wrong. As I placed Cerebro on my head I began to cry, as my worse fears were confirmed. He had been telling the truth. He had killed the X-men. Jean... Scott... Logan... all of them gone. That's when I see him! I should of killed him then. I should of torn his mind apart using my powers. This man, who emerge out of the shadows to stand before me, had killed the X-men. Instead I showed restraint... I had to know why he had done this. Instead of killing him I entered his mind, and aided by Cerebro broke though his mental barriers. His mind laid before me like an open book... he had no secrets from me. That was my mistake. I should of killed this monster when I had the chance, I thought I had. I didn't see it until it was to late. The truth was that Bastion was merely a pawn. The pawn of an enemy I'd thought dead. The Shadow King!.
As I drifted though the mental landscape of Bastion's mind, I heard the screaming. It was very disconcerting as normally these mindscapes are deathly quiet. A very large view-screen materializes in my path and a second later I find myself enrapture by the images being shown before me. He's showing me his life story. Why? Does he hope by showing me this I'll somehow understand his actions... that I'll condone his cold blooded murder of my students. I try to look away, to show my disgust, but I find that I can't. He has me trapped in some kind of mental webs... preventing me from leaving. I try using my powers to escape but I find they have deserted me once again. It would appear I'm learning the origin of Bastion whether I want to or not.
It turns out Bastion is not of this world. Son of an alternate reality Magneto and Rogue, Bastion grew up among that world's X-men. I must admit my surprise seeing how good a father Erik is. In this world I'd always looked to his horrid treatment of Wanda and Pietro as an example of his parenting skills. Him and Rouge do a wonderful job raising their child in a world ruled by a power mad Apocalypse. Charles is well into the second year of his life when I realize that I've seen this world before. Twice in fact. I saw it buried in the mind of Bishop during one of my session with him. The other time I saw in during my battle on the astral plane, with a powerful young mutant who call himself Nate Grey. I watch as a five year old Bastion is placed into the waiting hands of Apocalypse by a twisted version of Guido. My earlier suspicions are confirmed when I see Nate Grey and Bishop present at the battle a few hours later to rescue the young Bastion. Wait, what's that in the background? The M'Kraan Crystal on Earth? What is going on here?
Bastion's real name is Charles. It finally dawned on me as he is rescued from Guido by his mother. Erik named him after me. It is then the pieces start to come together. My death created this world, but I never died, so how can this world exist, how can Bastion exist? I listen as Erik explains Bishop's trip to the past to prevent my death. I feel Charles confusion when his father states this world, his world was never meant to be. His mind can't grasp the concept. Why does his world have to die? The bad man, Apocalypse is dead. Everything is fixed, they can go home now. That's when he sees it. The wall of white screaming toward them. He wants to cry out for his mother but it catches in his throat. That's when I feel it. His mind become two. Something else has entered his mind, someone. As the wall of white sweeps over Charles and his parents I realize the horrible truth. I know this second presence. Just before he ceased to exist, young Charles was taken over by Amahl Farouk, the Shadow King.
What just happened. Seconds ago I watched in silence as a wall of white obliterated a world, and now I watch in stunned disbelief as that same wall reverses itself, traveling backwards along the path it just came. It becomes clear to me what is happening when I hear Erik launch into his final speech backwards. The images on the screen are reversing themselves. I watch as the events that shocked me into silence minutes before, reverse themselves. Young Kitty returns to life as Colossus thunders over her, backwards. A shattered Iceman is reassembled by a thunderous blow from the same Colossus. Then as suddenly as this backwards viewing began, it stops. The screen focuses in on a creature that appears consist of a large head with four arms and a pair of legs jutting out of it. I watch as this same creature leaps into the M'Kraan Crystal and then it becomes clear to me. That's when I take note of young Charles, or should I say both of them. One of them sitting in the clutches of Guido, and the other racing across the battle field toward the M'Kraan Crystal. How can there be two of them? What is going on here? I have no time to ponder these questions as the one Charles leaps into the seething energies of the crystal, and a sharp pain explodes in my head at the same time.
All my questions are instantly answered, when for a brief few seconds my mind is linked to young Charles, as he travels though the interior of the crystal. He's a mutant...Charles is a mutant. Charles had the mutant power to alter the flow of time itself. To speed it up, slow it down, or as he had just done, reverse it's direction completely, and make it flow backwards. Shadow King had just torn into Charles young mind, tearing open the mental blocks that had prevented the child from accessing his dormant power at his young age. The Shadow King had come across Charles latent mutant power during one of his nightly visits to a sleeping Charles mind, which the Shadow King had performed several times, at the request of his master Apocalypse. He had used Charles as an escape vessal. To travel into the past, and escape the end of his world by leaping into the crystal. The Shadow King began to rethink this plan seconds after he had entered the crystal, when the energies of the M'Kraan Crystal began to tear young Charles body apart. I don't think the Shadow King knew what would happen in the crystal's heart, I suppose he saw it as a way to escape the end of his world, as had that big headed creature moments before. Anything was better than being erased... to cease to exist. If he had known what would happen to him in the crystal's heart, I do believe he would of thought otherwise. I watch in horrified fascination as the body of young Charles is pulled apart atom by atom. The energy at work on his body must be immeasurable. The screams emanating from his mouth are a testament to the pain he must be experiencing. I lose sight of Charles in an explosion of energy that consumes his body and then it's over. The swirling mists of the M'Kraan Crystal are replaced by what appears to be a burning forest. These fires are recent, started moments before I think... and that's when I see him. Standing in the dead center of the charred forest floor is a man. A man who I've come to know over the past few weeks as Bastion. A man with the energies of the M'Kraan Crystal burning in his eyes. A man who would kill the X-men.
I can't explain it. It makes no sense. Why would the trip though the M'Kraan Crystal affect him so adversely. Take a young child in, and spit out a fully grown adult. The only explanation I can see, is that somehow the young Charles mutant powers, interacted in some way with the energies contained in the crystal. That his power to speed up time was reversed in on himself. Numerous questions cross my mind while I watch the newly born Bastion make his way though the forest. I watch as he comes across the small log cabin in the woods. I try to look away as he callously murders the residents of that same log cabin, and the widening smile on his face as he stands over the dead bodies tells me all I need to know. Young Charles is no more. Whatever that was good within him is long gone, replaced by the ultimate evil. As he spells out his new name Bastion on the wall with his victims blood, I know the chilling truth. The last bastion of his world... the one who will destroy this one, is the Shadow King.
This is the sixth time I've seen him kill my son David. Apparently, the Shadow King/Bastion feels that David holds the key to make changes in the past permanent. I can see Bastion's frustration growing as David dies once again, after Bastion tore his mind to pieces in his search for the elusive secret buried deep in my son's mind. With a blood curdling scream Bastion unleashes his anger in a blast of raging energy that turns every thing on Muir Island into ash. When the X-men of this time arrive a few hours later Bastion has not moved an inch. I think Bastion kills them just for fun. Longshot is the last X-man left alive, and you can imagine my surprise when before he is killed, Longshot manages to bury one of his throwing blades into Bastion's heart. Bastion drops to his knees before he dies. I've seen this before... I've seen Bastion die hundreds of times now. He's got it worked out so that if his heart ever stops beating his mutant power will automatically take him a few hundred years into the future. It is in that future that any and every fatal injury incurred upon Bastion is cured by a team of advanced medical robots. In essence, Bastion can never die.
This is an A.I.M. headquarters. What is Bastion doing here? When he began to laugh an hour ago while reading though the files he had stolen from the Avenger's computers, I knew something was wrong. I should of paid more attention to what was on the screen. Lately Bastion had taken to breaking into the headquarters of the super-groups, and cleaning out their computer files. He had done it to the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, even my own X-men. In the Avengers files he had found something... something that brought him three years into the past, to this A.I.M. headquarters. I watch as he kills every person who crosses his path. Bastion is killed several times, but it makes no difference as he continues his search of the A.I.M. headquarters. Blasting his way though a huge three foot thick steel door, Bastion comes to a stop. Sitting behind an army of A.I.M. troops is a small cube, maybe three inches across each side. With a flash of his powers, Bastion jumps a few hours into the past and the army of A.I.M. troops vanish. Alarms begin to sound, as Bastion makes his way across the room toward the small cube. He walks though newly formed force fields as if they weren't there, until he stand over the small cube. Picking it up in his hands, he begins to laugh. He turns to face the A.I.M. troops racing into the room. I hear one sentence shouted by an A.I.M. trooper before Bastion vanishes with the cube in hand. That on sentence is... "Stop him, he's got the Cosmic Cube!"
It would appear that thanks to this "Cosmic Cube", the changes Bastion makes in the past are permanent. I watch as the Shadow King leaves Bastion's body in stasis as he travels though the astral plane to enter the mind of Erik Lehnsherr. Two days later, Magneto rips the adamantium out of Logan . When I lose control and mind wipe Erik, the Shadow King uses that moment of weakness to enter my mind. Inside my mind, the Shadow King begins to fling open doors best left shut. He unleashes the dark side of my soul which would later grow to become the monster called Onslaught. Bastion created Onslaught... the monster who destroyed my years of work, and sent the hatred of mutant-kind to a new level. After, insuring the creation of Onslaught, the Shadow King returned to his body, and traveled a couple years into the past to place himself at the head of a newly forming government task force calling itself Operation Zero Tolerance. The task force was originally designed for bringing in out of control super-beings, but Bastion slowly corrupted it into a mutant hunting task force. He knew the support for this type of program would come, when Onslaught emerged in a couple years. All he had to do was wait.
As I watch him begin to plan the murder of my students one by one I hear something behind me. Seconds later my view of the screen is blocked by an evil darkness that can only be the astral form of the Shadow King.
"Hello Charles... it's been a while." he gloats as he moves closer to display his row of razor sharp teeth inches from my face.
"You don't belong here... get out of this child's mind!" is all I can get out before I'm silenced.
"We know we don't belong here... we belong on our world. The one that ceased to exist when you kept on living. If you had died like you were suppose to, we would never be here now would we?" shouted the Shadow King before continuing "You killed his parents, Xavier... you destroyed my world. That's why I used you to destroy this one as well. Thank you for your help Charles, I couldn't have done it without you."
"I don't understand..." I state before I notice that I'm no longer inside Bastion's mind but back in the real world. Looking around the room I see no one. My powers are back, but Bastion is gone. Crawling my way across the floor I pull myself up into the seat. Placing Cerebro upon my head I send out a call for help to one young man, I believe will be able to stop Bastion before it's to late. God help me... god help us all.