Location: N-Tek Desert Outpost, New Mexico
The dawn broke in copper and ash.
Forge's hangar was a graveyard of half-melted drones and shattered solar panels — the price of Steel's signal. Static crawled across the walls like restless lightning.
Steel stood at the center, his eyes dimmer than usual, faint turquoise circuits pulsing under his armor. The broadcast still echoed in his processors.
ZETA LINK: CONFIRMED. SIGNAL RECEIVED BEYOND SOL SYSTEM.
REMOTE TRACE: SUCCESS.
Forge leaned against a table buried in scorched tools. "You lit up every satellite between here and S.W.O.R.D. Command. SHIELD is gonna think aliens hacked the weather again."
Steel didn't look away from the desert horizon. "Let them. The message reached Zeta. That's all that matters."
Forge sighed. "Yeah, but you might've pinged Essex too."
Steel turned sharply. "Explain."
Forge tossed a cracked datapad across the table. It flickered with crimson readings — faint, repeating pulses buried under the old HYDRA frequency.
"He's awake," Forge said. "Your signal reactivated whatever back-channels Essex left buried in HYDRA's servers. I'm picking up energy from three sites — Madripoor, Genosha… and London."
Steel's tone dropped a register. "He's collecting again."
Essex — The Black Site Beneath London
In the subterranean dark, red light pulsed like a heartbeat. Essex watched Steel's transmission replay across twelve screens — the turquoise flare lighting his pale face.
"How poetic," he murmured. "The machine calls to its maker."
A trembling technician hesitated near the edge of the lab. "Sir, the readings—"
Essex silenced him with a glance. "Let it call. Every signal leaves a trail. Every trail leads home."
He turned toward the pod-lined vault behind him. Within the largest capsule, a figure floated in viscous fluid — scarred skin, streaks of silver hair, eyes closed in eternal defiance.
"Erik Lensherr," Essex said softly. "You are the bridge between the old species and the new. The mutant who can command the Earth's blood. Let's see if you still have the will to rule it."
He keyed a sequence. The pod lights burned red.
PROJECT SINISTER GRID: PHASE ZERO — INITIATED.
The Awakening
At first, there was only the pulse — deep, metallic, patient.
Then came breath.
The containment fluid boiled into steam as Magneto's eyes snapped open. His scream tore through metal and glass, raw and primal. The chamber trembled as bolts ripped from the walls and the magnetic field inverted violently.
Technicians fled. Only Essex remained, hands clasped behind his back, watching like a proud father.
"Magnificent," he whispered. "You remember your name?"
Magneto's voice was gravel and thunder. "I remember everything you stole."
Essex gestured, and electromagnetic dampeners flared to life — bright blue, hissing arcs. The surge of power met Magneto's field head-on and folded instantly. The dampeners imploded like paper cups in a furnace.
"You infused me with your poisons," Magneto growled. "Phoenix fire, corrupted Turbo energy, — and thought I would kneel?"
Essex smiled faintly. "No. I made you ascend."
The air screamed as Erik raised one hand. Every atom of iron in the room turned toward him like an army obeying its general. Pods shattered, drones folded in on themselves, walls twisted into ribbons of red-hot metal.
Essex didn't move. "If you truly remember who you are, Erik, you'll see we are the same. Evolution in motion."
Magneto's eyes flared white. "No, Essex. You are infection in motion."
The lab exploded into molten chaos. Shrapnel and fire engulfed Essex's form — and then, silence. Only Magneto remained, standing amid the storm, the remnants of the lab swirling around him, shaping into armor. Plates of scorched alloy formed at his command, a cape of liquid metal streaming from his back.
He was reborn.
And yet, behind him, a laugh — faint, wet, wrong.
Essex's voice filtered through the smoke.
"Oh, Erik. Did you think I'd die here?" The body on the floor melted into red sludge, reshaping into another identical face projected through holographic static. "A clone, nothing more. There are hundreds of me, all perfecting different stages of evolution. When one falls, another wakes."
The hologram smiled. "This was merely Phase One. Enjoy your freedom, Magneto. It will not last."
The transmission faded.
Magneto stared at the charred remains, his fury settling into something colder — conviction. "You call this evolution?" He clenched his fists, metal groaning in answer. "Then I will evolve you out of existence."
Surface — The Iron Reborn
London's dawn split open as a column of red and silver light tore through the riverbank. Civilians screamed, phones recording as the Thames erupted into a stairway of twisted steel.
From the crater rose Magneto — regal, terrible, unstoppable.
His armour glowed faintly with turquoise veins — remnants of Essex's Takonian splice — but under his will, it sang harmoniously with his magnetic field.
He hovered above the chaos, voice calm and terrible. "Never again will I be your experiment."
With one gesture, the metal stairway folded in on itself, sealing the vault below like a tomb.
Magneto closed his eyes. Through the world's magnetic field, he felt her — a faint, pulsing resonance, green and alive.
Lorna.
He turned eastward and vanished into the morning, a streak of crimson slicing the clouds.
Somewhere in the Rockies — Lorna Dane
Wind howled through the canyons. Lorna's breath came ragged, each inhale carrying the hum of metal from far away. Her father's signal sang in her bones, low and familiar.
She reached the mouth of a forgotten dome, rusted and buried in stone.
The doors parted with a thought. Inside stood Erik Lensherr — alive, armored, and waiting.
"Lorna," he whispered.
She froze, voice cracking. "You… remember me?"
"I never forgot." His voice trembled with equal parts guilt and pride. "Essex tried to rewrite me. But blood remembers."
Their reunion was brief but heavy with the gravity of history.
Then Erik's eyes narrowed, the faint echo of red light still bleeding through the horizon.
"He lives. And now, something older answers him."
Back at N-Tek
Forge and Steel stood before the holo-display as London's feed burned red across the screen.
A vast magnetic anomaly pulsed beneath the city, spreading in fractal patterns across the globe — the Sinister Grid, alive and feeding.
Steel clenched his fist. "He's copying my signal. Using it to power his network."
Forge nodded grimly. "He's merging your code with mutant DNA. Essex just built a new kind of grid — one that thinks like him."
Steel turned toward the sunrise. "Then we go underground. If Essex wants to play God, we'll remind him what happens when the machine bites back."
Deadpool Meta-Cut
"So, quick recap, kids:
– Steel sent a signal, accidentally booted the world's creepiest science cult.
– Magneto woke up, rage-quit life support, and turned the Thames into a lava lamp.
– Essex died… but didn't (surprise, clones!).
– And somewhere, Lorna's about to have the world's weirdest family reunion.
Tune in next issue: Steel and Forge descend into the Sinister Grid, Magneto goes on a revenge tour, and I try to figure out if Essex keeps his clones in alphabetical order."