Magneto's words weren't only for Charles, or Raven, or the X-Men standing defiantly before him.
They were for Soren Macaluso.
A warning.
A final attempt to dissuade one man whose power Magneto both respected and feared.
His steely gaze held Soren's for a long, loaded moment.
Stay out of this. Don't make me face you.
Soren understood the unspoken meaning perfectly.
"Erik."
"We've all fought too long, too hard. We could end this now, no blood. Let this night pass, as if none of this ever happened."
Charles nodded mentally, his own heart heavy.
This was what he'd hoped for, too.
That maybe Erik would see reason… for the sake of old friendships, for the future of their kind.
But it was a fragile hope.
Magneto's face hardened.
Without a word, he lifted a hand, and the metal walls of the torch chamber trembled.
CLANG! BOOM!
Thick steel beams burst from the walls, slamming down before the group like massive iron spears, twisting and welding themselves into a formidable barricade.
The shriek of warping metal echoed through the torch room.
Magneto turned, his cape whipping behind him like a banner of war.
"If anyone crosses this line…"
"…I will strike without mercy. No one, not even you, Doctor, will stop me."
The iron doors slammed shut behind him with a resounding boom, sealing off the heart of the torch chamber.
Soren stood still for a moment, frowning, his gaze lingering on the sealed door.
He had tried.
He had given Erik the opportunity to step back.
But now, there was only one way left to resolve this.
A low hum filled the air.
BOOM!
With a single step forward, Soren's figure blurred, and the heavy steel barrier exploded outward, shards of molten, superheated iron scattering in the air like sparks from a forge.
Smoke and steam hissed around his silhouette, which emerged unscathed, and radiating an oppressive heat.
Inside the chamber, Magneto turned, and for the first time tonight, his face tightened with genuine concern.
"Doctor." Magneto said evenly. "You would really raise your hand against me?"
His mind flashed back to Cairo, to the way Soren had effortlessly wielded powers that defied natural law.
But the time for talk was over.
"This is your last chance, Erik. Turn off the machine. Walk away. I'll let you go."
"Impossible."
Magneto's answer was a cold, sharp word and then his hands raised.
CLAAAAANG!
The entire chamber seemed to scream as Magneto ripped every loose scrap of metal, every beam, every bolt from the walls and floor.
The air filled with a storm of blades, spikes, and jagged shrapnel, all hurtling toward Soren in a deadly rain.
An invisible shield around Soren flared, halting the storm of metal mid-flight.
Steel groaned against the unseen wall of force, warping and twisting in midair.
Whoosh… a blistering wave of heat erupted outward from Soren, bathing the room in searing light.
The steel shards quivered, then drooped, melting in midair like wax under a flame.
They hit the ground with a hissing sound, pooling into a wide ring of molten metal around Soren's feet.
A small, glowing moat marked the line Magneto had tried to hold.
Frustration carved itself deep into Magneto's face.
Huge metal slabs, entire sections of scaffolding, even twisted support beams were ripped free and flung toward Soren with ferocious speed.
The sky above the torch darkened with a swarm of spinning, lethal debris.
But…
Each strike met the same fate, shattered by Soren's telekinetic barrier or instantly incinerated by the blazing corona of heat that radiated from him like a living sun.
Even as the battle raged, Soren's eyes flicked toward the machine and saw her.
Rogue.
Strapped into the heart of the instrument Magneto had built to force evolution upon humanity.
This has to end.
"Erik. If you truly care for your people, for mutants, you'll stop this madness before it destroys everything you're trying to save."
Magneto, chest heaving, lifted his hands for another strike, but they trembled.
Not from fear.
From the unbearable weight of knowing he was already losing.
"I do this… for them."
Soren's gaze didn't waver. "Not like this."
Magneto's fury rampaged.
Even after everything, his defiance, his resistance, he would not yield.
Raising his hands once more, he reached out to seize control of the steel littering the room… only to find nothing left.
A sinking realization.
The intense heat radiating from Soren had disrupted its structure, dulling its magnetic response, making it sluggish and uncooperative.
The iron lifeblood of his power, reduced to shimmering liquid pools at his feet.
For the first time in the battle, true fear flickered behind Magneto's eyes.
Soren's faint smile cut through the heavy air.
In a blur of movement, his form became a streak of afterimages, cutting through the ring of molten iron as though the world itself bent around him.
By the time Magneto registered it, Soren was already in front of him.
A circle of pale blue light bloomed beneath Magneto's feet, inscribed with intricate, alien runes.
The hum of dark, ancient power filled the chamber.
"What…?"
This was no mutant ability. It was something else.
It was far more dangerous.
Unknown and therefore terrifying.
In desperation, Magneto ripped up the last remaining scraps of solid metal, encasing himself in a crude barrier of iron plating, an attempt to ground the lightning strikes and shield his body.
Soren had already anticipated this.
His palm turned, and the magic circle's power surged severalfold.
With the strength of the dark space at his command, Soren's control over the elements was absolute.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Bolts of searing, blinding thunder crashed down from the storm-churned sky overhead, hammering the makeshift barrier.
The roar was deafening.
The air smelled of ozone and burning metal.
Magneto's crude shield buckled, warped, and superheated with every strike.
The electric current surged through the shell, finding his flesh again and again.
His teeth clenched in agony, hair stood on end, singed and smoking.
And still~
Soren did not halt.
The relentless storm only grew in intensity, each strike more ferocious than the last.
With a final, concussive burst, the shield shattered, molten iron splattering across the floor.
Magneto collapsed.
His body scorched and broken, stray currents of electricity still flickering over his ruined clothes.
His face was blackened, he lay twitching on the floor, helpless, unable to stand, let alone fight.
Soren exhaled, his hand lowering as the magic circle faded and the peals of thunder died away.
In that moment, the onlookers, X-Men and Brotherhood alike, truly understood.
"…"
"…"
"…"
With a single attack, Soren had brought down the Master of Magnetism.
'Soren, please~'
Professor X's mind message cut through, trembling, yet firm.
"Please… Erik did this for our people. The mutant race he so fiercely protects. Whatever his mistakes, I beg you, show him mercy."
Soren shook his head faintly, speaking with grave calm.
"I have no grudge against Erik. Nor do I wish to see mutants harmed."
"But your plan was doomed from the start, Erik."
"The senator you transformed, the one you turned into a mutant with this cursed machine, came to Xavier's. He was dead within hours from the transformation."
Magneto's eyelids fluttered, his scorched face contorting with shock.
"I examined his body myself."
Soren's tone left no room for doubt.
"His genes were forced into mutation, violently awakening latent abilities his body was never meant to handle. It's unstable, fatal."
"Your machine… would kill every human you tried to convert. You would not lead a race of newly awakened mutants, Erik."
"Only corpses."
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
Fellow Phantoms and aspiring Phantoms to be, if you seek to access advanced parts of this story procced to my shadowy realm of p@treon.
PhantomDream