After sinister opened the door,a man was standing at the window gazing down on his creation. I quickly recognized him, Bastion.
Bastion stood in the heart of his fortress like a monarch addressing a court that didn't yet exist, a self-appointed ruler over a future he was determined to force into being. His voice echoed off the metal walls, cold and final.
"The world is a cruel place, full of evil maniacs," he said, raising his arms as if invoking judgment itself. "But what if the actions of every individual were controlled? What if we removed chaos from the equation altogether?"
He turned his head slightly to look at me, his expression unreadable but intense. That question wasn't rhetorical—it was a challenge, a proposition veiled in philosophical gravitas. Bastion wasn't just talking to himself. He was talking to me.
He wanted me to understand what he believed—that if every human could be monitored, programmed, made predictable, then evil could be eradicated. Crime, war, dissent—gone. That in his cold, mechanical heart, this was mercy, not tyranny. And in this grand design, I wasn't just a pawn.
I played dumb. Let the confusion rise to my face, even though the gears in my mind were already turning. Something about his words—his presence—was triggering an itch in the back of my skull. Something I hadn't dared to face.
Bastion saw through it. He always did.
"You and I," he said slowly, walking toward me with a measured gait, "we are the first step in that evolution. You're like a son to me."
My body froze. I stared at him, eyes narrowed. "Son? What the hell are you talking about?"
When I first stepped into the room, I'd felt something odd. A strange familiarity I'd chalked up to paranoia. But now, I really looked at him. If you stripped away the salt-and-pepper beard, shaved the thin mustache, and ignored the slightly more aged features… Bastion's face was my face.
He smiled, that eerie parental calm on his face, and placed his hand on my shoulder. I didn't flinch, but inside, it felt like tectonic plates shifting. Something deep within me was cracking open.
That kind of touch—it wasn't just paternal. It was proprietary.
"You may be a clone," he whispered, "but I still see you as family."
I blinked. Slowly. The words crashed into me like a train without brakes.
"A clone?" My voice was hollow. "Explain."
He stepped away, casually strolling back to his throne-like seat. The confidence in his movements burned me. He wasn't worried. He knew I wouldn't kill him—not yet.
"Take a seat, Mr. Cole," Bastion said, folding his hands neatly beneath his chin. "Sinister, you may leave us."
Sinister hesitated, eyes narrowing at me with a snake-like stillness before he finally turned and slithered out of the room. That bastard knew. Of course he did. He probably helped.
(Bastion's POV)
"You were raised in an orphanage," he began, his voice calm and clinical. "But that orphanage was nothing more than a cover—a laboratory I personally funded. Doctor Bolivar Trask was entrusted with that project. We shared a dream: hybridizing humans with sentinel technology to create the next stage of evolution."
He shook his head in disdain, as if the memory disgusted him. "But Trask's ambition turned into greed. He started selling out to government officials. Suddenly, sentinels were up for auction. They wanted to militarize perfection. So I shut him down."
I clenched my fists. My heart beat like a war drum.
"You mean the clone," I growled, "the Wolverine knockoff that nearly killed everyone in that orphanage… That was you?"
"Yes."
I was already on him before the second syllable left his mouth. My hand wrapped around his tie, jerking him forward until our faces were inches apart. My claws sprang from my knuckles and kissed his throat.
He didn't even blink.
"Calm down," he said, smiling faintly. "I know your pain. But those were failures. None of them were like you. You were the first success. The only success. I needed to test you, and you impressed me."
The temptation to rip his throat out was almost unbearable. But I paused. Not because of fear. Because of clarity. Killing him now wouldn't answer the thousand questions screaming in my skull.
"You can do it if you want," he murmured. "Why hesitate?"
His words were like steel dipped in ice. A challenge, yes, but also a twisted form of admiration. I released him, shoving him back into his seat and stepping away.
He adjusted his tie and smiled again, unfazed.
"I knew you were a reasonable young man. You and I could rule over this new world. What do you say?"
For a moment, I hesitated. The offer wasn't without appeal. The X-Men had left me to rot. My so-called friends abandoned me the moment things got complicated. Bastion was offering power, clarity, control. Was I really that different from him?
I could feel the weight of the decision press into my chest like an iron vice.
"I'll join you," I said finally, "but not as your servant. As your equal."
His smile widened. "Of course. Equals."
We shook hands, sealing the unholy pact between us. Then he led me through the facility—a towering fortress of steel and hum, lit by cold blue lights and the dull glow of machinery far beyond my understanding.
He showed me the sentinels—sleek, monstrous, beautiful. He called them his brothers and sisters. The gleam in his eyes was part reverence, part obsession. He wasn't just building machines. He was building a legacy.
Then came the real horror. The Prime Sentinels.
Humans, captured and enhanced with cybernetics, nanotech, mechanical limbs, and artificial neural networks. Some screamed during the procedures. Others just stared, their minds long since broken or erased.
"This," Bastion said with pride, "is our army."
I swallowed back bile. He could take the world with this force. No government, no mutant, no resistance could stand against him. How had the X-Men missed this? How had anyone?
___________
Days passed. My time with Bastion was… transformative.
He trained me personally. His methods were brutal but efficient. I learned to harness my cybernetic enhancements in ways I never imagined. The most vital breakthrough was my ability to project and manipulate electromagnetic wavelengths. With it, I could control certain classes of sentinels—primitive ones, mostly—but it was still a terrifying power.
And then there were the sparring matches.
We fought daily in the combat chamber—a brutal, adrenaline-soaked arena designed for sentinel testing. It became our battleground.
"Ah!" I shouted as he flung me across the room. My back slammed into a steel wall, sparks flying from the impact. Bastion didn't wait. He was already rushing me with a speed that mocked gravity.
But I was ready this time.
I twisted midair, morphing my hand into a hardened electromagnetic shield. His energy blast hit it head-on, and the shockwave shook the entire room.
I landed, panting, and didn't miss a beat. I slammed my foot down on a hidden micro-bomb I'd embedded in the floor minutes earlier. He was already behind me—teleportation or pure speed, I didn't know—but he saw the smirk on my face too late.
The explosion engulfed the space in a bloom of fire and static.
When the smoke cleared, Bastion was still standing, singed but alive. His cloak smoldered. His chest was scorched. But his grin never faded.
"You've really improved," he said, dusting himself off. "That was a genius move."
I felt a surge of pride—genuine pride. But it didn't last.
"You're still giving yourself away, though," he continued. "That smirk… it gave me the extra second I needed. You have to deceive, Cole. Not just attack."
I nodded, absorbing the lesson. He wasn't wrong. That single slip of emotion had cost me the element of surprise.
"I want a rematch," I said, already shifting into stance.
He grinned. "Now you're thinking like a predator."
After the sparring I looked at my hands and thought.
"I was a clone. Manufactured in a lab. Built from someone else's flesh, programmed to be something I didn't understand. But the blood that coursed through my veins was real. The pain, the power, the anger—all real.
I wasn't his puppet. I wasn't a failed experiment.
I was me.
And if Bastion wanted to build a kingdom of machines, he'd better remember that I was the one weapon he couldn't control him.
Not forever.