Magneto Rises

There is something Professor Xavier has never been able to explain simply to a new student, and it is this: the hardest battles are not always against people you hate.

Sometimes the hardest battles are against people you once loved and could not reach.

Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr had been friends once — two brilliant young men who both knew what it was to be different, who had sat up late talking about the future of mutants and the world. They had disagreed, even then, about the path forward. Xavier believed in patience, dialogue, and the slow work of earning trust. Erik believed in none of those things. He had seen too much of what happened when people like him were left unprotected.

Their friendship had frayed, and then broken.

Now Erik called himself Magneto. He wore a crimson helmet and a sweeping cape, and when he raised his hands, every piece of metal within a hundred meters obeyed his command. He was extraordinary and furious and absolutely certain he was right.

On a cold November night, Cerebro told Professor Xavier where Magneto was: the Statue of Liberty, towering green copper above the dark harbor. World leaders were meeting on nearby Ellis Island for a summit on global cooperation. Magneto had built a machine — electromagnetic, precisely calibrated — that would reach the summit from the torch of the statue and alter the genetic code of everyone inside, whether they wanted to become mutants or not.

Xavier had tried to call him. He had dialed the number three times and sat listening to it ring. Erik had not answered.

The Blackbird crossed the harbor in silence. Storm wrapped the jet in cloud cover. They set down on Liberty Island with the bay wind cold against their faces.

The Brotherhood of Mutants held the torch platform: Mystique, who could become anyone; Sabretooth, growling and enormous on the outside rail; Toad, who clung to the underside of the observation deck like a lizard waiting to drop.

Cyclops led the team up and gave his instructions in a low, unhurried voice. Jean and Storm would clear the outside. He and Beast would push through the stairwell.

The first surprise was Mystique. She had taken Storm's exact appearance and was moving behind Cyclops quietly. But Beast saw the shadow wrong on the wall — just slightly too short, slightly too still — and said "Cyclops, left." Scott spun and fired. The illusion dissolved.

Jean handled Toad neatly. She wrapped him in a band of telekinetic energy, applied a gentle sideways arc, and let go. The splash from the Hudson a moment later was impressively loud.

Storm went high. She called a sharp crosswind that hit Sabretooth in mid-leap and dumped him sideways across the deck. Cyclops added one beam. Sabretooth stayed put.

Then there was just Magneto.

He stood at the railing of the torch platform, both hands raised, and everything metal on Liberty Island began to sing and groan. The torch's steel frame bent. The observation railing buckled. The Blackbird on the landing pad below shuddered and slid six feet sideways.

Jean planted her feet on the shaking platform and held it level. Her hands were shaking too. She held it anyway.

Cyclops looked through the field of bending metal for the device. It was central — a glowing electromagnetic ring the size of a dinner table, turning slowly.

"I need eight seconds," he said.

"You have eight," Jean said through her teeth.

He took them. One narrow, perfectly controlled optic blast. The ring cracked and went dark. The machine made a sound like a chord played on a broken instrument, falling out of tune all at once.

Magneto lowered his hands slowly. He looked at the device for a long moment. The harbor wind moved his cape.

"The humans will never love us, Charles," he said, quietly. He wasn't speaking to anyone present. He was speaking to an old memory.

Xavier's voice came through the earpiece — steady, a little tired. "We are not doing this to be loved, Erik. We are doing it because it is right."

Magneto said nothing more. He looked at the dark harbor below. Then he turned and allowed himself to be taken.

The Ellis Island summit continued. The world leaders inside never knew how close the night had come to being different.

On the flight home, the X-Men were quiet. Storm watched the lights of Manhattan move past below. Cyclops kept his eyes forward. Jean sat with her hands in her lap and thought about the look on Magneto's face when he'd stared at the broken machine.

Not defeated. Just sad.

Sometimes the hardest battles end that way.

Sleep well. And hold on to the people you love.