Outside the containment chamber at the Alkali Lake Dam base, the guards shifted uneasily...
The heavy steel door emitted a faint, ominous hum, and dust shook loose from overhead pipes. The squad leader tightened his grip on his submachine gun, recalling his superior's warnings about the dangerous mutants inside. A wave of tension gripped him.
An invisible force radiated outward from the containment room, spreading rapidly in all directions. The overwhelming psychic energy warped reality itself, freezing time in an instant.
Every guard's eyes glazed over, their thoughts grinding to a halt. It was as if the world itself had been paused.
Inside the room, only three remained conscious... the comatose illusionist Jason, the wheelchair-bound Professor, and Sean, standing tall.
Their gazes locked, psychic forces clashing. In terms of pure telepathic prowess, the young man was no match for the bald elder. But his goal wasn't to defeat the Professor.
"Professor, come with me to the future that belongs to mutants..."
Fleeting images swirled like a river around the towering sacred temple. At its center, the old man tilted his head slightly, peering into the flickering fragments of light. Within them, he saw a familiar face.
"Logan..." The Professor murmured the name.
But this was not the cigar-chomping, rough-edged loner he remembered.
The Logan of this future was a shadow of his former self; unkempt, unshaven, dressed in a cheap black suit.
Were it not for the attire, he might have been mistaken for a homeless drifter. The once-indomitable warrior now carried an air of weary resignation.
The psychic storm abruptly weakened. The Professor stared stunned, as Logan (the man who never aged) was beaten down by common thieves, even taking bullets to protect a rented car.
"...What happened?" The words slipped out in a daze. How could Wolverine, Stryker's perfect weapon, fall so far?
The scenes shifted, revealing a Logan utterly unlike the one in the Professor's memories.
Gone was the reckless, unstoppable berserker. This Logan moved slowly, his temper dulled, his body littered with unhealed scars. Even his legendary regenerative abilities seemed to be fading.
He no longer went by 'Logan'. Using his birth name, James Howlett, he worked as a rideshare driver, holding umbrellas for passengers, squinting through glasses to read medicine labels. Not a trace remained of the fierce warrior from his prime. This was a broken man.
Delving deeper into the fragments, the Professor's consciousness became an omniscient observer surveying this bleak future. He watched Logan return from Texas to the Mexican border, where he found another shocking sight... himself, but decades older.
A toppled water tank lay in the dirt. Logan carried medicine into a dim, crumbling room. The wise, benevolent Charles Xavier had become a babbling old man. He was bedridden, deranged, and far cry from the mutant leader he once was.
"What... is this?" The Professor's voice trembled. He refused to believe this was his destiny.
As the psychic storm subsided, Sean stepped into the sacred temple (the Professor's impregnable mental fortress) as effortlessly as walking through an open door.
"Don't you see, Professor? Even after rewriting time and creating a new future for mutants, the outcome remains unchanged..."
"...Future humanity found another way to eradicate your kind. Mutants dwindled into obscurity. For twenty years, no new mutants were born. Your people were systematically erased... And you, Charles Xavier, the world's most powerful mind, were stricken with Alzheimer's. Isn't that fate's cruelest joke?"
Grief flashed in the old man's eyes. He saw himself lying in a farmer's bed, confessing his guilt. During one episode, he had killed hundreds innocents... a memory so horrifying, his mind had buried it. Only over a quiet dinner did the truth resurface.
When Logan's clone drove claws through the old man's heart, Charles made no protest. Past and future seemed to converge in that moment just as they had when the younger Professor confronted his future self in 'Days of Future Past'...
The visions faded. Tears welled in the Professor's eyes as doubt and despair took root. Had Sean wished to strike now, the old man would have been defenseless.
Recalling the future he'd witnessed, Charles felt a pang of sorrow. An aged Logan whose healing factor seemed to be receding had hidden him away on the Mexican border, medicating his deteriorating mind.
The once-proud warrior drove strangers across the city, saving every penny for a boat, having a dream of escaping to the open sea, to live out their final days in peace.
Yet even in this tragic tale of flight and survival, the ending never changed... Charles was buried by a grassy riverbank, and Logan finally found rest in death.
Decades later, mutants became mere comic book characters. No one believed the X-Men or the Brotherhood had ever existed. They were relics, forgotten beneath the dust of time.
"How do you know all this?" The Professor's voice was raw with anguish. He couldn't accept that his life's work would lead only to this.
Not even in death would he see the peace he longed for. Even with time rewritten, mutantkind's extinction was inevitable.
"Think of me as a traveler swimming upstream through time. This world is my final stop." Sean's smile was gentle.
Studying the conflicted old man, he said softly, "Peace is never won through pleas. It must be taken. I want mutants to join my cause because in the future I envision, they won't be wiped out. They'll live in the utopia you dreamed of."
"Do I have a choice?" Bitterness laced the Professor's words.
He understood mutantkind's predicament all too well. Magneto's dramatic reemergence had galvanized governments into action. Even if he escaped this dam, where could he go? Hide elsewhere? Join Erik's Brotherhood in open rebellion?
Charles had realized the truth: retreat solved nothing. But would defiance bring a better tomorrow?
"Professor, you can start by trusting me. By your moral standards, I may not be a 'good' man. But I keep my promises." Sean's smile was knowing.
No matter how much the Professor sympathized with humanity, when faced with his people's extinction, the mutant leader would make choices contrary to his ideals.
"You've convinced me. But Erik will never compromise." The Professor knew true unity was impossible unless his old friend could be reined in.
Sean's grin widened, "Persuasion is a specialty of mine, whether through words or... other means..."