Chapter 58- Strange Additions

  Savage Lands– Just outside of the Citadel’s Filter- 2008- 10- 29 (Early Morning)

  Eric Lensheer- (Magneto)

  They were waiting for the Newmen to arrive, he had moved ‘their’ spaceship outside of the affected area of the Citadel’s Perception Filter just an hour earlier, as well as pced a metal pte on the ground that they could use as a lift once everything was settled with their hunters.

  He was still surprised at how truly alien the ship's hull felt to him. Still, it obeyed the ws of physics and was floating under his control in the air above them. The slight breeze lifted his cape, as it passed.

  “You know I could handle this myself, if you need more time to grieve.” The mutant leader muttered to the man beside him.

  "No, I need the distraction," Nath'aniel admitted.

  The mage hadn't seen anyone since sending Steve and his liaison back to New York. He just locked himself up on his floor of the Citadel, letting only Betsy and Sam to visit him. Nath'aniel had even given the Brotherhood a pass on their session st night.

  Erik was about to ask if the mage had a lead on the sorcerer's request, when he felt the marching metal armor and weapons reach the edge of his senses. He wasn't sure, but he thought that the range that he could feel metal had expanded since passing the magnetosphere. Still, he waited and counted the number of Newmen heading their way.

  'Ten, twenty, forty, fifty-five in total. Give or take given that some might not be carrying anything metal on them.’ He thought as he waited.

  Then after some time, Nath'aniel announced. "Here they come." And sure enough, a moment ter the front line of knights entered his vision. As armored tiger, wolf, and bear men marched at an earth crewing pace.

  "They move at a faster pace than we did during the war," Erik observed, as they waited a little more. When he saw the bear-woman in the red tunic and blue pants jog ahead of formation he winced a bit, but policed it quickly. The Countess had been a little bit forward during the waning moments of Entreatment Day, and his son had started calling him a 'furry'. Not that the mutant leader really understood what the term meant, bur dreaded the suggestion of it.

  "Well, they all are comparable if not with Sam, then at least Dugan in terms of strength and endurance." The mage pointed out before they got closer.

  Although from what little Rahne had told them, the Newmen still probably heard them. Of course, this thought made him wonder if they could detect the gathered military constructs just on the other side of the Filter. He kind of hoped they did, but given how impressive the Filter was in the first pce he kind of doubted. Heck, when he looked over his shoulder he could only tell they were there because the Filter didn't target him, otherwise he was willing to bet even his powers would be suppressed by it.

  While the knights and squires stopped short of the metal pte on the ground, Countess Ursu didn't, she then called out to the men behind her. "Attention!" The gathered soldiers all struck their beast ptes in a salute. She looked them over, seemingly pleased with their performance, she nodded before approaching him and the mage.

  “Only this many?” Erik asked her once she was closer.

  "We didn't want our masses to feel under-protected." The snout-less bear woman said, before looking at Nath'aniel and asking. "How will we do this, you give us an estimate or something on our targets?"

  The mage shook his head, before reaching into his robes. As he did, the knights reached for their daggers or short swords. This caused both Betsy and Shanna to materialize with weapons drawn. Ursu didn’t even need to say anything; the knights saw the two women and froze.

  Still, a moment ter the countess barked. “At ease!”

  The soldiers released their side bdes, and stood with hands behind their armored backs.

  Seeing this, Nath’aniel removed an emitter from his robes. Unlike the many others, this one wasn’t bck, but charcoal grey. Erik wasn’t sure when the mage had found the time to make it, but from what the Citadel told him, this one had a limited number of times per day that it could connect with her. Not that she couldn’t still see through it, but rather its users couldn’t ask her for aid as much as the other ones that they usually gave out did.

  'Not that we told the tribes that had them, that little detail.' He thought while the mage expined the use of the emitter in his hand.

  Once he finished he demonstrated its use, pressing the rune, causing the hologram of the Citadel to appear above it. Unlike the humans and beastmen of the Savage Lands, the Newmen seemed unimpressed with the technology. Once active the image issued them their mission.

  "Your target for today is an overpoputed raptor cn. My scans indicate there are over a hundred dinosaurs in this pack. You will need to locate the cn's matriarch while also thinning the cn's numbers. Do not wipe them out completely as it will leave a void that other predators will fill. I suggest hunting either a third, or up to half of the cn. For now head west then north to their hunting grounds."

  Ursu bowed towards the emitter and the mage, before taking the small device in her rge hands. Then she turned around to address her gathered troops. “Sir Fang, you will lead your brothers and sisters in this hunt. Do not bring further shame to the Newmen.”

  ‘Sisters?’ Eric wondered. Then he gazed over the crowd again, and this time he had to admit that some of their faces did indeed look more feminine than the others, especially among the felines.

  The wolf-faced Newman approached her, his armored hands held out to receive the emitter. While the knight started to say some ptitude, the mutant leader wasn't really paying any attention to him, as he felt more minor amounts of metal appear at the edge of his senses. A smaller group, but the rge mass that was their Baron couldn't be ignored.

  ‘That must be their science team, here to extract their left behind member from the ship above.’ Erik thought. The sounds of the knights saluting again brought his attention back to them, not that he needed to act against them. As 'Sir Fang' ordered them to about-face, before marching them out of the area. Once the troops were far enough away, Countess Ursu turned around and winked at him casually.

  "I think she likes you," Nath'aniel whispered to him. The bear woman must have heard it though, as her cheeks reddened a second ter. The mutant leader only crossed his arms as a response. As they watched the knights run off into the distance, as they waited for the Newmen scientists the mage added. “Do you want me to run some genetic simutions, you know, see if your two races are compatible?”

  That caused the two Servants to begin ughing, and the Countess to further blush. Since silence wasn't reaching the mage, Eric stated. "Let's shelf such topics for ter shall we?" Somehow this caused the Countess to become shy and cover her face, but only for a moment, as the science team slid into view a moment ter.

  There were six, including the massive Baron Ivory. Most of the team seemed coyote and owl breeds of the Newmen, although there was also a raven member. They wore robes rather than armor and the metal that he felt off of them reminded him of the ship above, making him wonder if some of their tools were not truly theirs.

  “I am… not used to… to all of, this running about.” The coughing and wheezing elephant man admitted.

  Nath’aniel then took the two steps he needed to step onto the metal pte. While Psylocke joined him, She-devil did not, instead choosing to go back to her spirit form. The smaller scientists were quick on the uptake and also walked over and climbed on the pte. However with the Countess already on it, as well as the rest of them Ivory quickly realized that there wasn’t enough room for him.

  "I'll catch the next lift." Baron Ivory muttered before Eric wrapped a field around the pte and lifted both it and himself into the air up to the waiting ship.

  “Not to be rude, but Countess, why exactly are you not leading the hunt with your men?” Betsy asked while they soared through the air.

  “The Newman in the b was deemed unstable by the High Evolutionary, so I didn't want just some scribes to be there alone when we awoke her." The bear woman expined. Eric had to sub-consciously agree to her expnation.

  He wasn’t sure how, but the mage had already reset and adjusted the security systems of the craft to his and the Brotherhood’s needs, so the airlock chimed before sliding open at his approach. He left his arm in the doorway, allowing the Newmen science team and Ursu inside. Then he and the telepath entered the craft proper.

  The mutant leader remained in the air, as he quickly lowered the pte, and waited for the elephant man to climb atop the pte, before raising it again. When the doors refused for the rge Newman, Eric floated closer to it, and they opened, allowing the two of them to enter.

  The airlock was empty save for them, and while the mutant leader didn’t know the way, Baron Ivory did. So he let the wide man lead the way. As they walked through hall after hall, eventually Eric got tired of the quiet so he asked. “From what I read of your people’s records, there should still be five members of the ship’s original crew, yet we couldn’t find them, what happened to them?”

  That got the Baron to cough, making him feel that he wasn’t about to like the answer that he was about to give him. “HE recycled them, to make Him.” The elephant man vaguely answered.

  After thinking it over a moment, the mutant leader guessed. “I am going to ignore the intentions that ‘recycled’ means for a moment, and guess that HE, is short for the High Evolutionary, but who is ‘Him’?”

  The lead scientist shrugged before expining. "Him, is well him… if you haven't figured it out by now, but HE is kind of terrible at naming people." They then came to another set of doors, that initially refused to open for the rge man, but once he sidestepped, they opened for Eric.

  Then the two of them quickly stepped into the already mostly filled b. They were immediately assaulted by the man’s staff getting readings from the ship’s and their own equipment.

  “Vitals are stable. She should be fine to awaken at any time.” One of the Owl Newman announced.

  “Her mind is currently showing no presence of the Sway, shall I calibrate a dosage for her?” One of the coyotes reported from the rge standing silver casket at the far end of the room.

  Yet before she or the Baron could answer, the raven Newman reported. "DNA is stable but slightly deviated from the standard Newman tempte. Not only does White Tiger possess the Mosul-gene as desired, but it is already active. HE could not determine what powers she was given as a result."

  While that got Eric's interest, making him ask for confirmation. "You are saying your Newman in there, is a mutant?" But he was also distracted by the other metal casket in the room. The same one that Nath'aniel was looking over, almost as invested in it as when the Ancient One brought them the Time Stone.

  “By your terminology, she would be yes.” The mage agreed from the far right side of the room.

  The mutant leader turned to face the rge elephant man in the trunk before demanding answers. “How? From the records of his that I read he couldn’t get them to work outside of us humans.”

  "It took many years and thousands of samples, but eventually HE was able to isote and remove the precise genetic material in you humans and spliced it into a newly created Newman, to make White Tiger." Ivory expined while tapping his nailed fingers against each other nervously.

  "That man is a monster." Eric muttered angrily.

  "Oh absolutely, but you must also understand that these people around you would not exist without his drive to create… so you may want to temper your opinion for now." Nath'aniel reminded him from his pce in the room. Still, most of the mage's attention was on the golden casket in front of him as he spoke.

  Ursu took a step towards him before she said to him. "We know our creator is not a 'good' man, but from your own histories we have seen that 'good men' tend to be curtailed by your world."

  He waved her statement away, but gestured for them to continue, before he moved to join his friends by the other casket. The Newmen went to work, reading and analyzing their equipment before releasing their comrade.

  Once beside the mage and telepath, he pointed at the gold metal box and asked. "What do you want to do with this one?"

  Yet before either of them answered him, he heard a voice inside his mind. “I am not HE, but I am his creation.”

  Eric quickly touched the helmet on his head, making sure that it was still there.

  "Yeah, he does that," Psylocke mutters.

  “How…” the mutant leader began to ask.

  "Your helmet while useful, but it is not an absolute," Nath'aniel answered his question before he could finish asking it. Then the mage rubbed his chin before answering his first question. "And currently, I am slightly inclined to let him out, simply to satisfy my curiosity."

  The sound of hissing and steam being ejected from the silver casket behind them, made the mutant leader turn around, and watch as a naked woman, covered only in her thin yer of white fur and bck stripes stepped out of the metal box. Like many of the Newmen, she had a stripped tail protruding from her backside and a feline-esk snout attached to her face. When she yawned, he could see the long sharp teeth that made up her jaw.

  Her green eyes swept over the room, but when her gaze nded on him and those beside him, her fur distorted, before she vanished from his sight.

  “Where did she go?” one of the other Newman asked.

  “She is still her somewhere, I can still smell her.” One of the coyotes admitted.

  Then the sound of something smacking into the metal doors made everyone look towards the room's only exit. Still, the mutant leader couldn't feel nor see the still invisible Newman woman. Worried about what the empowered feline would do, Eric pulled out some of the metal pieces built into his armor.

  Nath’aniel also wasn’t idle, as he took the st step he needed to be beside the controls for the other casket.

  "She is afraid of the other casket," Psylocke warned everyone. Then she drew her sword and materialized a police-like baton in her other hand. Her eyes glowed purple as she too looked around the room.

  “I would be too, if you could see how much power he is passively emitting.” The mage admitted as he tapped a couple controls on the screen in front of him.

  "What…" Eric began to ask confused, but more so he felt the golden casket shifting and moving, as the mage released the contained man. Then a lot happened at once, the once gold casket, faded and was now silver like the other one, just before its doors opened. And then a golden-skinned man flew out. Naked the same as the feline woman, floated in the middle of the room, just before he grabbed an invisible wrist.

  “I am not your enemy.” Him told everyone in the room.

  Then naked gold-skinned man also had gold-like flowing hair. Then his sculpted chest was cut and torn as another invisible cwed hand raked his chest. "So this is pain… it is rather fleeting." The man muttered as his pure white eyes looked down at the white blood flowing from the cuts on his chest.

  Him’s eyes momentarily fshed red, before the tiger woman turned back into a visible state.

  “I like the feeling of your fur.” Him stated, and then she kicked him in his unprotected groin. The sight made Eric flinch, and yet the golden man only reacted for a second, before tilting his head confused.

  "I think she wants you to let her go," Psylocke told Him.

  Again his eyes changed color for a moment, before he nodded and muttered. "It would have been faster had you just asked for it. But thank you for the new experience." And then he released his grip on her wrist.

  White Tiger jumped back as she rubbed her wrist, as she did Him’s chest healed just as fast as or faster than Wolverine’s would have. As the two stared at each other, Eric leaned over to Nath’aniel and asked. “Why did you let him out?”

  The mage shrugged before saying. “Him made a reasonable argument. And besides, the sins of a father should not pass onto his children.”