The Riddle Of Steel

by Alicia McKenzie

I do not dream, during the long sleep of regeneration. As my body is remade, I dwell for a time in the country of death. I walk in its shadows, free of fear, and laugh at a mortality I never possessed.

After rebirth, as I move through the world to shape it to my vision, dreams return to me. Great and terrible dreams of cataclysm, of the trial that every living thing on this ball of mud must inevitably face. I glory in those images, in their affirmation of the truth that has guided me over the long centuries.

Blood must prove blood. It is the way of things.

Yet my dreams take on a different tone, of late. I see the faces of those who oppose me, the fools who deny their own nature for a pitiful fantasy of coexistence. Warriors with a fatal weakness, misguided children of the atom who might have been among the strong. Who might have been gods, standing at my side--

They lack the will to survive. Altruism is a disease of the soul, and in them, the corruption runs deep. They will learn the price of their 'ethics' when the time comes--by my hand, if it is to be.

I would take great pleasure in that.

But in the end, it does not matter. They are nothing, pebbles before the flood. A few might be saved, should they kneel to me. My Angel of Death--there is still a place for him. Some of the others, perhaps. Those not so far gone in delusion, those still connected to their true, primal natures, who still feel the triumph in the sight of an opponent lying broken and defeated at their feet.

Those who have not entirely lost the taste for blood.

And Dayspring. The boy-turned-warrior who believes he hunts me. The man who has made me his mission, his obsession--his very life.

What am I to do with him? Sweep him aside, like the momentary obstacle he is while his true power is still locked within him? The techno-organic virus has nearly run its course, as I told him when we journeyed through the astral plane towards Onslaught's stronghold. Perhaps it would be better to dispose of him now, before he finds his true potential--before the chrysalis is broken.

Or shall I instead allow him to live, and thus delight in my own handiwork? Sinister may have brought about his birth, but I own him. Child of Xavier's Dream he may be, but everything he is, I made. By my own hand, his innocence, his illusions, were stripped away. He sees with the clarity of one whose soul is fed by hatred.

He could stand first among my servants, if he chose. Greater than the Horsemen--a Paladin, my own right hand! He could be in the vanguard of the great change to come, wield untold power in my name!

He could have the world, if only he would acknowledge me!

Instead, he curses me. For all his strength, he is blind. What would he have been, without me? More powerful, true--unhindered by the virus. But a weapon is nothing without the will to hold it. I gave him that will, created that dedication in him. Without me, he would be another X-wearing fool, the pampered first-born son of the next generation of dreamers.

Instead, he has been honed--tempered. The iron beneath the surface has been forged into steel. He knows the transient nature of inconsequential things such as love, and compassion--all of that, he owes to me. The strength in adversity--the enduring fire in his charred soul.

He is less than he might have been. And more.

He is a survivor.

I yearn for the day I face him at last.

However it ends, it will be glorious. A true test.

At last.

fin

[FOOTER]