The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

-Any sign from Thanos yet?- Morgan /asked me.

-No idea why Death sent him out. Adam and his team have been tracking him physically, as well as hounding that Magus who’s been so elusive. The incidents have to be related. The Magus was a full ‘Champion of Life’, whatever that insanity is supposed to mean.- Eternity was technically all living things, and the Magus was NOT Eternity’s champion, so whatever was going on in his head was totally wrong. Yay, student of Master Order and Lord Chaos!

-And how many billions will Thanos sacrifice to kill him?- Morgan /hmphed. -Best of luck with that.-

-Indeed.- I turned as two women came up to speak to me. One of them was blue of skin, glowing-yellow-eyed, and auburn of hair; the other woman appearing normal if white-haired. “Mystique, Destiny,” I greeted them politely. Remember they haven’t actually done any of the stuff they remember doing, I said to myself. “May I help you?” I asked two more members of the Krakoan Quiet Council.

“We would like to thank you for sharing the Mindblade Reversion with us,” Mystique replied, raising her hand and calling forth a green-purple blade that looked, well, like it was poisonous. Her blue skin faded to a normal olive hue, and her auburn hair went dark, her yellow eyes turning dark brown. She looked entirely like a normal woman, which was both the point and a great advantage, as she wouldn’t pop a mutant sensor right now, either.

“It is not a secret. I hope it eases the pains of those of your people with non-beneficial physical mutations,” I replied cordially, which was the main reason we’d spread it among them, the secondary reason being giving mutants who didn’t hit the Genetic Lottery an avenue for advancement and power that relied on their own skill and determination, not being born with Delta or Epsilon-class potential.

“I would like to inquire about another matter,” Destiny asked firmly, scanning my face intently. “You know that I am a precog, correct?”

“Yes,” I confirmed for her. “I imagine our presence here in the immediate time is very disruptive, and you’ve likely been completely unable to timesight further ahead in time.” I tapped my own temple for her. “I have Cosmic Awareness, which allows me a measure of temporal sight as well. Anything involving Terra and the human race, which now includes your Earth, is nigh-impossible to forecast or predict to any degree. A hyper-logistician could try calculating potential futures, but naturally any unknown information will completely throw such things.

“If you’re anything like some of the precogs back home, you feel half-blinded with those of us around who are not susceptible to predictive measures.” Which, with a couple Nulls among the entourage and a lot of people wearing Astral Wards of some type or another, was most of us. “It will fade somewhat when we depart.”

“And the longer-term effects?” she pressed quickly, clearly a little agitated. “Will those dissipate?”

“No. If anything, they will grow stronger. Human destiny is subject to neither Fate nor Chance, and timesighting is an attempt to lock in a specific future. You are feeling the resistance of all humanity actualized to defy such attempts to limit their future, and the lack of options.

“This is Earth-1832, Destiny. There are no alternate futures here, only the one that arrives as we get there, all others falling away to nothing. Seeing multiple implied futures in the distance would naturally make that untrue, you’d actually be accessing a parallel or new timestream.

“Your own powers are preventing you from seeing a lie, and human destiny is preventing anyone from locking in their future.”

She slumped somewhat, clearly put off that her powers were being so easily foiled in both the immediate future, and that further out. “I... my visions, in the past, they have no relevance now...?” she trailed off in defeat.

“Well, that’s probably not true, on the face of it.” She looked up hopefully. “Our Alternity Watch watches many parallel timelines for exactly the same kind of effects you timesighted for, and even goes up and down timestreams looking for events which could happen in ours.

“The difference is that we don’t act as manipulators so much. I imagine that a great use of your power was to personally profit yourself and take advantage of chances and opportunities no one else could see coming?” My gaze was knowing, but my tone non-judgmental.

“Even a few minutes of warning can be enough to get in ahead of others on... certain actions,” she answered without remorse, Mystique even smirking slightly.

“This has naturally left you playing your cards close and not allowing others to see them, as that would throw off your predictions and you couldn’t personally profit, then. Without long-term foresight, it’s a self-defeating mentality.” I waved at the gathering around us, mutants talking with Mutates, Nulls, Sources, Corpsmen, and a non-human or four. “It’s very difficult to manipulate us when you can’t determine the proper course of action to get where you want to go, correct?”

Her lips thinned, but Destiny nodded, Mystique looking slightly amused. “It is... much more difficult, yes,” she conceded.

“A lot of that is because you were and are dealing with many self-interested manipulators, who would take advantage of you, yes?” I let my eyes flicker over the members of their Quiet Council. Sinister, at least, had left the meeting early. “Thus, hoarding your knowledge is keeping some degree of control for yourself.”

“That is correct.” Destiny studied me keenly. “How powerful is your ability to predict?” she asked me intently.

“Nowhere near as immediate and finely-tuned as your own, or able to juggle along so many near-time possibilities,” I admitted honestly. “I am capable of sensing broad threats in the immediate future, the greater the threat, the longer away it is, and if it is extra-solar, actually a fair bit into the future. I can follow a timeline, but each divergence is something I would have to track separately therefrom, and it rapidly becomes untenable.

“On the other hand, I can look all the way down to the ends of Eternity, if I so desire and have need to.”

“Has that become necessary?” Destiny asked, shocked at the implication and scale. “So far away...”

“You would probably be unpleasantly surprised by how often it becomes relevant.” Especially since we’d just learned that fucking with the End of Time in one universe could ripple out into all of them, above and beyond little things in one time growing into disasters that would threaten multiple others.

You could learn a lot of stuff watching from the End of Time...

“Is there a Destiny or Mystique on your world?” Mystique asked me intently.

“There was. They messed with someone they didn’t see coming, and, eh. Something about selling off low-end mutants to Sinister for tests, as I understand it.” I glanced in his direction, his life a Black blot in my awareness, ignoring the way both of them tensed. “He didn’t see it coming, either,” I assured them, which didn’t make them feel less stressed for some reason. “Murder for self-profit is a net loss to humanity, and a fine way to get yourself bumped off to reclaim the debt,” I mused. “So you needn’t fear potential rivals from our world obsessing over who of you is the real one, or something equally unhinged.”

“Can you see the destiny of mutants?” Destiny blurted out urgently.

“No,” I replied promptly. “I can sort of sense humanity’s advance, but mutantkind is just a small part of that. We’re already on to bigger and bolder things and possibilities, mutants are just a small part of Terra’s destiny. Breaking them out just weakens both and creates unnecessary conflict on top of it.”

Destiny sighed deeply, seeming both defeated and hopeful. “Sometimes it seemed there would be no bright future for mutants at all...”

“Well, as soon as you set yourselves up as independent of human society, you set an apocalypse in motion, no different from an alien society coming down and creating a colony without the approval of humanity. You went from random excitement to condensed threat. It’s a good thing you’re powerful enough to stave off a conventional assault, because there’s plenty of people who can’t tolerate the threat you represent, especially with the morals your leadership has shown in the past.

“We’re all wondering how it’s going to turn out. Quite the death pool going back on Terra, given how all parties are acting.”

“The greatest threat to mutants has always been the Sentinel program,” Destiny began, and I held up a hand to stop her.

“Please stop. The greatest threat to mutants has been the rest of humanity reacting to what you do and are. No more, no less. The Sentinel program is just a manifestation of it.” I glanced between them. “You may rest easy that we will not allow the development of a hostile AI program on this world that could affect our world and others. That does not mean the development of advanced robotics is being denied.”

“Nimrod? Master Mold?” Mystique asked slowly, glancing between us.

“We are watching their potential designers, and have already issued warnings about that avenue of development. It likely won’t stop them, but they have been warned.”

Destiny stared at me, then visibly relaxed. “That... the Sentinels have been by far the biggest weapon used against us. That they will not do so here is immensely relieving. Well, at least their ultimate forms.”

“It’s easier to build robots than powerful mutants,” I opined back. “It’s not a solution to your problem.”

“No, the problem is this island,” Destiny agreed. “When Moira MacTaggert, Xavier, and Magneto set this up, I was dead and could not intervene. This...”

“Moira helped set this up? Interesting. I didn’t think she could think on this scale. Well, it gave her a better place to live than Muir, I suppose.”

Both of them froze, staring at me. “Moira... is living on Krakoa?” Destiny hissed.

“Yes?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Same as ours. Got off of Muir, exchanged stone and cold for trees and sun, I assume.”

“There are dire ramifications if Moira is involved in mutant destiny!” Destiny blurted out. “Where is she? She needs to be eliminated!”

“No, she doesn’t. Like you, she has no effect on destiny now beyond what any normal person does. Her previous lives have absolutely nothing like this timeline. She has absolutely no foreknowledge of what is going to happen, and no ability to change it. If she dies, she’ll just blunder off to a new timeline somewhere else, she can’t reincarnate here. There’s no ‘trying again’.

“If she tries something massively self-destructive, she won’t even get to reincarnate. Just ignore her, she’s proven to be useless. Multiple tries and didn’t learn anything appropriate, and nothing we haven’t seen a lot more of in other alternities.”

Their mouths opened and closed, staring at me. “You know about her?” Mystique asked strangely.

“She’s a perpetual reincarnate, except she’s tied to her own life, not new ones. Sure, we know what she can do. She tried to convince Elder Lensherr back home to declare New Israel a new mutant homeland and rebel against the Great Bear. That went absolutely nowhere, as he did some investigating, discovered she’s a mutant, what her power was, and had a nice sitdown with her that terrified the shit out of her when she realized he could end her forever.

“She was good about solving that anti-mutant Legacy Virus thing, and that’s pretty much been it. On the flip side, being irrelevant means she’s had the freest life of all her incarnations, so she’s been basically goofing off and staying on her tiptoes with the mutant supremacy crap, or a Widow will visit her and end her forever.”

“Perhaps you should have that conversation with our Moira? My visions of her and this island were... cataclysmic.”

“Really. Well, her head is probably breaking with our Terra hanging out there upsetting all the apple carts with all these positive alternate solutions. Terrible fate, I’m sure.”

The ground trembled. I glanced down, and followed the seismic waves out to the ocean.

“Oh for love of... I trust Cassandra Nova is NOT one of your citizens?” I asked them.

“No! She wants to kill all other mutants as a threat to her!” Mystique instantly spoke up. The ground shook again.

“Wonderful. She found an abandoned Eternal war-bot and is coming for the island. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go out and stop her from atomizing this place.”