Fan Fiction Parody
2001. Genosha remains a mystery to the masses, only spoken of in whispers by those who hear stories of an island where mutants can live without fear. For the people who call it home, however, Genosha is not a rumor or a legend. It is a nation, a sanctuary and, more importantly, a place where they can finally live without looking over their shoulders.
The island has grown considerably since Charles joined Erik in 1983. What had once been little more than untouched wilderness has become a thriving mutant community, with villages stretching along the coast and homes built into the hillsides. There are schools for mutant children, hospitals staffed by doctors and healers with extraordinary abilities, laboratories where scientists study genetics and technology, farms that supply food to the entire population and gathering places where people can simply spend an evening together without worrying about being hunted. Mutants with visible physical differences walk openly through the streets. Children with glowing eyes, wings, tails, blue skin or other unusual characteristics play alongside children whose mutations were not visible at all. Nobody stares. Nobody whispers. Nobody runs.
At the center of Genosha’s government stands two men whose history had once been defined by conflict. Charles and Erik rule the island together, although neither describe their relationship as romantic. They are partners in every meaningful sense of the word, bound by years of shared experiences and losses that gradually transformed their rivalry into a profound friendship. They disagree constantly about how the island should be governed, how mutants should interact with the outside world, but their arguments rarely threaten the foundation they have built. Charles represents hope, diplomacy and the belief that mutants can create a better world without becoming the very thing humans fear. Erik represents strength, vigilance and the conviction that peace is only meaningful when those who desire it have the ability to defend themselves.
Their true partnership formed from tragedy. In 1992, Charles former student Jean was inhabited by a cosmic force that transformed her into something far more powerful than anyone could have imagined. The entity consumed her mind and overwhelmed her judgment, turning the woman Charles had trusted for years into a being capable of devastating destruction, leading to the death of his adopted sister, Raven. Yet when a group of alien invaders attacked the team, Jean fought against the force inside her long enough to save them. She used her extraordinary power to protect Charles and the others, knowing that the effort would cost her life. Jean died saving the people she loved, leaving Charles with a grief he carried long after the battle was over. Erik had been affected by events as well, and although he rarely spoke about it, Charles knew that it had changed him too.
The world seemed smaller after Jean and Raven’s deaths, and their old arguments seemed almost meaningless compared with the reality that people they loved could be taken from them without warning. With Genosha, they decided to build something together. Charles brought his dream of peaceful coexistence, while Erik insisted that the new community must never be defenseless. Their philosophies remained different, but for the first time they were working toward the same goal. They wanted a place where mutants could raise their children without fear.
Then Marie came into their lives.
She was a frightened child when she first arrived on Genosha, and she had already learned to fear the most innocent form of human contact. Marie’s mutation allows her to absorb the powers of other mutants through touch, but her abilities go much deeper than that. The longer she maintains physical contact with another person, the more she can take from them. Their strength can become hers. Their mutant abilities can become hers. Their energy can become hers. But the most dangerous aspect of her mutation is something she discovered only after accidentally draining another person who was already critically injured. Marie could absorb life force. If she holds on for too long, she can take a person’s life.
Charles had spent years teaching her that her mutation does not make her dangerous by itself. It is what she chooses to do with it that matters. Erik taught her something different but equally important: fear of her own abilities could become more dangerous than the abilities themselves. Between them, they helped Marie develop control. She learned to fly, to use her tremendous strength and to defend herself without allowing her fear to overwhelm her. More importantly, she learned that she was not a weapon.
Somewhere along the way, Charles and Erik stopped thinking of Marie as a child they were protecting and started thinking of her as their daughter. There had never been an official announcement, it simply happened. She called Charles Papa and Erik Dad, and both men accepted the titles without question. Genosha became the only home Marie had ever truly known, and Charles and Erik became the only fathers she had ever needed.
Now 18, Marie has grown into a confident young woman, although she still possesses a rebellious streak that neither Charles nor Erik has managed to eliminate. On a warm afternoon, she’s supposed to be studying the history of mutantkind. Instead, she is floating several hundred feet above the beach, enjoying the sensation of the ocean wind rushing through her hair.
Charles watches her from the balcony of their home, trying unsuccessfully to look stern. The open history book beside him had been abandoned for nearly twenty minutes, and he knew exactly why. Through their telepathic connection, he reaches toward her and reminds her that she’s supposed to be studying. Marie immediately insists that she is studying, even though Charles points out that floating above the ocean is not generally considered a recognized form of academic work. When she claims that she is studying geography, Charles asks what geography had to do with the assignment. Marie tells him that she is studying the geography of Genosha, which causes Charles to laugh. When he reminds her that she is terrible at lying, Marie responds that she had learned from Erik.
Charles immediately tells her not to repeat that particular accusation, but Marie is already laughing as she descends towards the balcony. She lands lightly beside the table just as Erik emerges from the house. He has heard enough of the conversation to understand exactly what is happening, and Marie immediately recognizes the look on his face. When she greets him casually and asks whether he is angry, Erik tells her that he is disappointed. Marie grimaces and admits that disappointment is worse, prompting Erik to agree that it is. Charles watches the exchange with amusement, because he kows that despite Erik’s stern expression, he is secretly delighted by the young woman Marie has become.
Erik points toward the abandoned book and reminds her that she is supposed to be studying history. Marie reluctantly picks it up and asks whose history she was expected to read about. When Erik tells her that it was the history of mutants and Genosha, she complains that she had heard the story before. Charles gently corrects her, explaining that she has heard pieces of the story, not the entire thing. Marie looks at him for a moment and understands what he means. There were still parts of the past that Charles and Erik had never fully discussed with her, particularly the years surrounding Jean’s death and the events that caused the two men to abandon their old lives.
Marie knows that Jean died saving Charles and his team. She knows that Jean had been possessed by a cosmic force and had lost control of herself. She knew that Charles had loved her as a student, a friend, and that her death had changed him forever.
For eighteen years, Genosha has remained peaceful. There have been disagreements, accidents, arguments and the occasional mutant conflict, but there has never been anything resembling an organized attack. That is why Erik immediately knew something was wrong when he saw a mysterious woman walking along the eastern road.
He is standing near the center of the village when he notices her approaching through the trees. At first, he thinks he is seeing someone else, perhaps a woman who merely resembles someone from his past. Then she steps into the sunlight, and Erik stops breathing. He knows the face before his mind can accept what his eyes are seeing. The woman walking toward him is Magda, his wife, the woman he believed dead for years.
Erik stands completely still as she approaches. His mind floods with memories he spent years trying to bury, and for a moment he is no longer standing in the center of Genosha. He is remembering another life, another family and another time before everything had fallen apart. When the woman stops in front of him and greets him by name, he can barely respond. He finally manages to tell her that she had died, and she calmly agrees that she had. When he demands to know how she can possibly be standing there, she gave him a faint smile and suggests that perhaps death is not as permanent as everyone believes.
The answer disturbs him more than it comforts him.
There should have been emotion in Magda’s return. There should have been tears, questions and disbelief. There should have been some indication that she understands the magnitude of what has happened. Instead, she seems strangely detached. Her attention quickly moves past Erik and settles on the house, where she saw Charles in his wheelchair beside Marie.
Magda studies the girl with an expression Erik does not understand. When she asks who Marie is, Erik tells her that she is his daughter. Magda seems surprised and repeats the word daughter as if it were an accusation rather than a statement of fact. Her eyes then move towards Charles, and she asks whether Marie is his daughter as well. Charles steps forward and tells her that Marie was theirs, and something cold passes through Magda’s expression.
Marie senses the tension immediately. She moves closer to Charles and quietly asks if everything is all right. Charles places a hand on her shoulder and reassures her that he is there, but he can already feel something wrong in Magda’s mind. He has spent decades studying the human and mutant mind, and he knows when someone is hiding something. Magda’s thoughts are not simply guarded. They feel artificial, as though someone has constructed a wall around her consciousness and deliberately sealed it against psychic intrusion.
That evening, Genosha citizens gather in the central hall, eager to see the woman who has somehow returned from the dead. Some call it a miracle, while others wonder whether Magda has developed a mutation that allows resurrection. Erik answers questions reluctantly, while Magda appears almost amused by the attention. Charles watches her carefully from across the room, listening to the surface thoughts of those around him while concentrating on the woman sitting beside his oldest friend.
Eventually, Charles reaches toward Magda’s mind.
The moment his telepathy touches her consciousness, something strucks him with such force that he immediately withdraws. It isn’t a natural psychic defense. It is a barrier, constructed and reinforced as though someone has designed her mind specifically to prevent a telepath from discovering the truth. Magda looks directly at him and calmly tells him that he shouldn’t do that. Charles apologizes and says that he’s simply curious, but he can see from her expression that she knows exactly what he’s been trying to do.
Later that night, Charles finds Erik standing alone in his study. Erik doesn’t turn when Charles enters because he already knew why he had come. He tells Charles that he doesn’t believe Magda is really his wife, and Charles carefully explains that he believes she thought she was Magda, which is not necessarily the same thing. Erik wants her to be real. After all the years of loss, he wants to believe that somehow the universe has given him back the woman he had loved. Charles understands that desire, which is precisely why he doesn’t want Erik to be deceived.
If Magda isn’t who she claims to be, someone has brought her to Genosha for a reason. Three days later, that reason becomes impossible to ignore.
The first explosion strikes the eastern perimeter just after sunrise. The second comes seconds later, followed by a third that shakes the foundations of several nearby buildings. Sirens erupt across Genosha as residents pour into the streets, while Charles immediately reaches into the minds of the masses at once. Fear spreads across the island like a wave. Children cry for their parents, families rush toward shelters and defenders begin moving toward the eastern wall.
Charles projects his voice into the minds of the population, urging everyone to remain calm and follow the evacuation routes. Erik arrives at the command center moments later and demands to know how many attackers they were facing. Charles closes his eyes and searches through the minds approaching the island before answering that there are at least three hundred.
Then he feels her. Magda.
Outside the eastern gates, an army of mind-controlled mercenaries are advancing across the fields. Some carry weapons specifically designed to suppress mutant abilities, while others possess mutations that make conventional weapons unnecessary. Fire burns from the hands of one attacker, another has transformed his arms into enormous blades and several others possessed enough strength to tear through the island’s defensive barriers.
At the center of the army stands Magda.
Erik walks through the gates to confront her, with Charles following closely behind. He demands to know why she has attacked the island, and Magda tells him that Genosha has become something valuable. When Erik accuses her of attacking his people, she mocks him for becoming sentimental. Erik raises his hand, and every piece of metal carried by the invading force tears free of their possession. Weapons fly into the air, blades twisted and restraints shattered as the magnetic field surrounding Erik expands across the battlefield.
He warns Magda that she will not touch anyone on the island. She smiles and tells him that the attackers aren’t there for the people of Genosha. They were there for Marie.
Erik’s expression changes instantly.
Charles steps forward and demands to know who she really is. Magda looks at him and tells him that she is Magda, but she is not his Magda. When Erik demands to know what has been done to her, she gives him the answer he’s been dreading. “They made me.”
Magda allows Charles to enter her mind. He notices a laboratory buried beneath the earth, filled with scientists, machines and enormous glass chambers. Various genetic sequences projected across walls and rows of samples being catalogued by technicians. Then he sees one particular chamber containing a developing human body. The body is unmistakably Magda’s. He watches it grow through accelerated stages, watches scientists monitor its development and finally saw a mysterious figure standing behind the glass.
Charles tries to see the man’s pale face, but the memory remains deliberately obscured. Then he hears the man’s voice. “Send her to Genosha.” Charles breaks the connection.
Magda staggers, and Erik grabs Charles by the arm, demanding to know what he saw. Charles tells him the truth. Magda is a clone. Someone has created her in a laboratory and sent her to Genosha to spy on them. Erik stares at the woman who looks exactly like his dead wife, struggling to comprehend how someone could take the face of the woman he loved and turn it into a weapon.
Before Charles can say anything else, Magda screams. Something has entered her mind. Charles feels it immediately. There is another presence connected to her consciousness, a remote command that has been activated from somewhere far away. Magda’s expression twists with pain.
A battle erupts across Genosha.
Mutants who spent years believing that they would never again need to fight suddenly find themselves defending their homes. Energy blasts tear through buildings, fire spreads across the eastern fields and the air filled with the sound of collapsing metal. Erik stands at the center of the chaos, manipulating cars, weapons, beams and every other piece of metal around him into shields and projectiles. Charles moves through the battlefield, using his telepathy to confuse attackers and force them to drop their weapons.
Marie watches from the village until she can no longer stand aside.
When Erik notices her take flight, he shouts for her to stay back, but Marie tells him that the attackers are coming for her and that she has to help. Erik wants to argue, but there is no time. One of the mercenaries reaches Marie first, and she catches his fist.
She feels his strength flow into her body, followed by his energy and then something deeper. His life force begins pouring into her, and the sensation frightens her enough that she releases him. The man collapses, unconscious but alive, and Marie stares at him in horror. She whispers that she didn’t mean to hurt him, but another attacker is already coming from behind.
Marie turns and strikes him with enough force to send him crashing through the wall of a building.
Charles reaches her mind and tells her to breathe. Marie admits that she is afraid she will kill someone, and Charles reminds her that her mutation does not decide who she is. She has spent years learning control, and this is another moment in which she has to trust what she has learned. Marie took a breath, then another, and when she looked toward the battlefield again, the fear in her eyes have been replaced by determination.
Magda watches her from across the battlefield. “Remarkable,” she says.
Charles appears (surprisingly) behind her and tells her that she will never have Marie. Magda turns toward him with a cold smile and reminds him that Erik used to tell the real Magda how he had always been protective. Charles pushes into her mind again, searching for the laboratory he had glimpsed earlier. The images return, but this time he tries to force the memory forward far enough to see the mysterious man’s face.
He almost succeeds. Then the psychic command returns. Magda screams, and the connection is shattered.
She attacks Charles with a mysterious force, knocking him backward. He manages to raise a telepathic barrier, but she breaks through it somehow, and sends him crashing into the ground. Charles demands to know who created her. Magda looks at him with an expression that is almost pitying and told him that he will meet her creator soon.
Erik tries to stop the mercenaries, but several attackers reach Marie. Three surround her, attempting to restrain her long enough to capture her. Marie fights desperately, draining the strength of one attacker before throwing him aside and knocking another through a wall. The third raises a weapon, but Erik rips it from his hands and wraps the metal around his body.
“Get away from my daughter,” Erik shouts. Magda watched the scene. Then she smiles. “Goodbye, Erik. For now.” She disappears like wind in the air. Without Marie.
The remaining attackers are quickly overwhelmed, but the damage to Genosha has already been done. Buildings are burning, the defenses have been destroyed and dozens of mutants are wounded. Marie stands among the destruction, staring toward the place where Magda had disappeared, when Charles suddenly looks towards the sky.
A jet descends through the clouds.
Erik immediately raises his hand, preparing to attack, but Charles stops him, saying he sent a telepathic call out to “some old friends.”
After landing, the door opens and Scott steps onto the ground, his red visor catching the morning sunlight. Ororo follows, the wind moving around her as though welcoming her home. Kurt teleports from the aircraft in a burst of blue smoke, while Peter arrives moments later in a blur of motion. Remy steps onto the battlefield with a charged playing card between his fingers, Bobby immediately begins freezing the flames consuming the eastern district, Cecilia creates protective force fields around the wounded and Betsy draws her psychic sword as she enters the fight against the remaining mercenaries. Hank comes last, his blue fur covered in dust and his expression grim as he surveys the destruction.
Charles stares at them with pride, overwhelmed by the sight of his students, and some new faces, returning to his life.
Scott approaches him, gives him a big hug, and assures that they will deal with the remaining attackers. Hank looks around at the devastation and remarks that he wishes their reunion had occurred under better circumstances. Erik, still covered in dust and debris, looks at the team and tells them they were late. Hank explains that they had faced a delay, and Remy grins before joking that they had encountered traffic. For the first time since the attack began, Erik smirks.
The moment was brief, but it reminds Charles of what they had once been. A family. And perhaps, after such a long time, they were becoming one again.
Marie remains several yards away, staring at the horizon. Charles approaches her and asks if she is all right. She admits that Magda wants her, and Charles acknowledges that she does. Marie asks why, but Charles can only tell her that he doesn’t know why yet. Erik joins them and promises that they will find out.
Before either man could say more, Scott approaches with a small communications device. He explains that the team intercepted a transmission during the attack and hands it to Charles.
Charles activates it.
“Genosha has been compromised. The Professor’s partnership remains intact. Subject Marie remains viable. She is still on the island. Proceed to Phase Two.”
The transmission ended.
Someone had been studying Marie. Someone had been studying Charles and Erik. Someone had possibly been studying every mutant on Genosha. Someone had sent a clone of Magda to trick Erik.
And whoever that person was has just begun the next stage of their plan.
That night, while the people of Genosha begin repairing the damage, Charles sits alone in the command center reviewing everything they have recovered from the attack. Erik eventually joins him, and for several minutes they sit beside one another in silence. Erik finally tells Charles that he should go to bed, and Charles replies that Erik should join him. Erik reminds him that he isn’t the telepath, prompting Charles to chuckle. The humor fades quickly when Charles admits that whoever created Magda knew about Genosha, knew about Marie, and knew about the partnership between them.
Erik looks through the window toward the sleeping island and quietly admits that Marie is what concerned him most. Charles places a hand on his shoulder and promises that they will protect her. In this moment, he knows Erik is thinking of his own slain daughter, once shared with Magda. When Erik asks whether they will do it together, Charles gives him the answer neither of them need to question anymore.
Neither realize that Marie is standing in the doorway listening to them.
She looks down at her hands and remembers the feeling of another person’s life flowing into her. For the first time, she wonders whether the people who had created Magda knew something about her that Charles and Erik didn’t. Perhaps there was something hidden inside her mutation, something that went beyond power absorption and life-force transfer. Perhaps that’s why someone had gone to such extraordinary lengths to find her.
Far from Genosha, beneath miles of rock and earth, a man watches the battle through a wall of monitors. Footage from the island plays across dozens of screens, showing Charles using his telepathy, Erik commanding the metal around him, Marie flying through the battlefield and the arrival of Charles’ former team. He watches each mutant carefully, studying their abilities and reactions before stopping on an image of Marie.
“Phase One was successful,” the man says as he watches the screens. “Prepare for the next.”
To be continued…
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