"No, I won't leave you alone you piece of shit. What, exactly, did you make her do?"

It was a scene of wires, gears, servos; a landscape of all sorts of pieces of technology, scattered about and strung together in a freakish web of silicon and fiber-optics. Grays, blacks, blues, with the occasionally red LED light that blinked haphazardly drew the shapes that made up the sub-sea level room. Deep beneath the crust of the earth as it was, not many knew about it, and only a few even knew how to get into it. One sole person called this alcove of machinery home, the fragments of salvaged materials making up his very body. It was this person who squirmed and attempted to retreat, thin bionic wires like strands of hair that flopped and flailed against the floor, searching for some port to reconnect to, some system to reacquaint itself with.

Again the white haired devil above him ripped the wires from atop his scalp, pulling out what little blonde hair the mutant had left as she did so. Red spectacles started down at his blinking bionic eyes, a whole new set of optic circuitry being put into place by his mutant abilities not long after he first manifested, now holographic windows into his binary written soul. He was rightly fucked, and he knew it. "She'll kill us both if I say jack."

"Don't make me ask again, Harddrive. I can do a lot more to you then she ever could."

"Then why don't you go fuck with her Blaze?" Another wire snapped as Siena twisted her booted foot, the connection severed. "Fuck! I was just doing what I was asked to do! It's not like we don't have to put food on the fucking table you know? His lordship's whore offered me a lot of money to act as that kids focal."

"She thinks you are her dead brother! That girl has been through enough!"

Harddrive coughed up a blue tinted liquid, thick like phlegm, onto the floor, his remaining arm strained in the vain attempt it made to pull himself to safety even still. A shower of sparks was the boon the effort received, the metallic plates that made up the former Dark Riders spine split by Siena's fist. Turning around, all Harddrive could do was look up into those damn red mirrored glasses Blaze wore. "When did you start playing the mother role? That maternal instinct didn't stop you from murdering the Acolytes."

"The Acolytes were a buncha washed up abortions who still drew breath. I did the world a favor killing the lot of them," Siena commented with an aloft nature, as if she were discussing the weather, "Though you can talk about how I slighted them all next time you see them. Which will be very, very shortly."

Harddrive again attempted to re-secure himself in the network of computers and mechanics nearest to him, all the while being told by the processors making up his brain that without a doubt, the white ball of lighting that slowly gathered around Sienas fist was going to be his end.

THE NOW

"This is a new beginning for Genosha," Lehnsherr continued, "A time of re-growth. At one time we sought a place inside these walls of politics. No longer.

"We sought to co-exist with what humans were left on Genosha. They decided to change that fact. No longer are homo sapiens welcome on our isle.

"This is not an act of aggression. This is an act of isolation. You have screamed to the heavens you hate that which is better then you, that you can't abide it exist with you. More and more newly manifested mutants are beaten and hated simply cause they are different then you. We've heard your words, spoken through your actions. You don't want us. Fine, we now have a place of our own.

"We do not need you."

THE NOT YET

It had been so fun at one time.

Talons etched markings in the ground, sigils unseen by many outside the region of the Amazon. Tears soaked the earth, the soft whimpers of morning lifted to the air.

When this all started, blowing up shit had been wonderful. She at one time loved the idea of being a terrorist, forcing her way through the world and making them all bow to her. Now...

A cry of pain ripped into the night's air, the feline qualities of the keen noticed by anyone who heard it.

Now her lover's dead eyes only looked back at her. Those wonderful orbs of brown, the coffee skin of her cheeks, the thick and wild dreads that framed her face. Supple, beautiful, and powerful. No one till her had been able to go te to toe with the morning mutant. Not one single person could outlast her in the bedroom. Not one.

Before her, that was, the object of her affection now lost to the art of terrorism.

It took a transplant to show Feral, Maria, why the fuck people bought into the concept of love. Now, Feral buried that very same person, enacting the odd rites the native had cherished. It was the way she would have wanted it, Maria thought to herself as she inspected her work, vision blurred as it was by the tears. So much had happened in the mere weeks since she had died, all keeping Feral from dealing with her grief and the woman's proper burial. So much had distracted her from reality.

Once all she was, was deluded. Now, her eyes were wide open.

THE NOW

"Open your eyes Mr. Lehnsherr. There is no way anyone can just let a nation of nuclear warheads go about their day to day business without some global attention being paid to it." A representative from China spoke, his translator catching up with her employers words quickly. Erik saw the distrust and anger that riddled the politicians face, no matter how honey sweet his assistant delivered his words.

"I do not care, sir. Nor do I care if you continue to use your abortion machines to eradicate x-gene positive babies in the uterus. Genosha is no longer your concern, just as your actions are no longer mine. Those that disagree with your treatment of my species will show it themselves. I will no longer attempt to galvanize a cognizant change in the way humanity thinks about mutants.

"Genosha will have the chance to rebuild, and heal. It will be given the space to show the world it is not only equal, but that all your fears are correct and we are very much your better.

"The human nation has decided it will not strive to better itself. Now, the mutant nation will illustrate what a faulty decision that was."

THE NOT YET

They were all at fault, every single one of them. Their decisions had been tainted with error, each step they took partly false because of the intents behind it.

At one time she believed she was a catipeller, and the school she attended her coocon. Slowly, she grew and changed, moving beyond the confines of that shell she cherised. She had expanded her new found wings and took flight, elsewhere, away.

Too early she had flown from the coop. Too young she faced life head on, suddenly involved in gambits with the world at stake, powerplays of gods and demons dropped at her feet.

A butterfly no one saw crumpled and thrown to the ground like the refuse she now fealt she was.

A student of Xavier, and a warrior of Magneto, sat at a cross roads. Tabitha to some, Boom-Boom to others, and Meltdown to most, the girl with too many names was contemplating her life until this day. Time had speed up over the past few months. She only dimly remembered Shatterstar's private and illegal funeral. The first of many small facts that put a bad taste in Tabitha's mouth when thinking about 'Lord Magneto'. Many more such pieces of information had come to light since, opinions being formed as more and more property was destroyed.

Hammer Bay still laid in ruin, the meager construction efforts that had been attempted since the Magistrates departure all but destroyed now. Avalon tower was a shell, a few spires of steel amongst a mountain of rubble. The Genoshan population itself was a fragmented mess of cliches and factions. Meltdown herself sat on a dirt mound, not sure where she should go as she pondered the nagging thoughts she'd sequestered for months now.

Xavier had it wrong, this Tabitha knew. There was no such thing as peace, not while one is feared. Magneto as well had it wrong, continuing to push an agenda of fear down the world's throats. Down Genosha's own throat in throat. The two were extremes of the same path, Tabby thought, as she watched the small fires around the Avalon Tower wreckage in the distance.

Genosha continued to change, continued to transform like a butterfly, fighting to exit its cocoon. Looking around the landscape, the pot-holes of energy blasts and flames of death surrounding her, she wondered if it wasn't time someone took greater interest in how that butterfly grew up.

The birth pangs so far were nearly too much too bear, Tabitha whimpered as she hung her head in shame at her nation's exploits.

THE NOW

"You don't like the way we've retaliated to your actions so you expect us to leave you alone? I am sorry, sir, but I take that as an implied threat." A French man of meager build responded, glaring down at the powerful mutant that stood before them.

"No, I am not threatening you. I would have blown up this building or some other ridiculous ploy that has failed more times then I care to count. I am a changed man. A changed man who sees that you are unwilling to change yourself. I do not threat you in hopes you will be too fearful to do anything but grant me what I want. I am telling you how it is.

"I am telling you to leave Genosha alone like a father speaks to an errant child. Politics is a game of words, Sirs and Madames. Make no mistake that I mean exactly what I say.

"Again I refer to the work of Shakespere. In that same poem I quoted before, the Merchant speaking goes on to say 'if you slight us, do we not seek revenge?'" Magneto paused for a moment, letting his final words sink in. "Do not give Genosha, or I, any more reason to seek out revenge against you and yours. Do not mince my words.

"Leave. Genosha. Alone."

Erik Lehnsherr finished his speech to a room full of silence and table gripping white knuckled lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

THE NOT YET

The satin sheets crumpled under her fingers, bunched up and snagged in her grip as she fought for some leverage against the weight pressing against her. Again she thrust back into the form above her, slick skin that rubbed together as each moaned their approval of the other s actions.

"It's... done... My Lord." She fought between gasps of breath, pelvis rising from the beds surface while she placed her weight on her back and the balls of her feet. She garnered perverse pleasure the harder his hands pulled at her buttocks. Her dreams were realized in his powerful grasp, something she never truly thought would happen.

"The message has been sent?" His even voice asked, white hair matted with the same sweat that drenched his body.

Her leg wrapped around his midsection, the lady who wore psionic armor at times now laid on her side, the form near her continuing his invasion of her body to her glee. "Yesss... They... They are dead." His ministrations rose in pitch, the woman's thighs sure to be bruised in the morning under such treatment. "They called down your fury."

His eyes only smiled as his mouth grunted as he pushed forward even harder.

"All who opposed you once... alllll... They are all now dead, in your name, Lord Magneto."

The world exploded in a kaleidoscope of release that forced her to fight for consciousness. Oxygen battled to return to her weary lungs. Spots circled in-front of her eyes. Black edges began to contract, more and more areas of nothingness concaving together into a fractal of ebony.

"Now, they are all dead." Erik Lehnsherr released the magnetic hold on his former guards heart, the dead body coming to rest lying on the bed she coveted a position in for so long. Sometimes, dreams do come true.

NEXT ISSUE: A few new arrivals to Genosha...

POSTMARK: GENOSHA

Well, here's my first issue at M2K. Russ left some huge shoes to fill here, but I'll try. Confused by this issue? Good you should be. Soon, it'll make sense. :)

-ALEX
hazardous_designs@yahoo.com
09.24.02