Location: Classified GSA Black Site, Upstate New York
Time: Three Weeks After the Malibu Incident
The base was ruins now.
Magneto stood amid the twisted wreckage of steel reinforcements and crushed concrete, his cape billowing in the cold wind that swept through the shattered facility. Around him, freed mutants huddled together—some weeping, others simply staring at their liberator with expressions caught between gratitude and shell-shock. The Government Science Agency had built this place to break them, to study them like specimens. Now its walls lay torn open like a dissected insect, its secrets spilled across the frozen ground.
"Go," Magneto said, his voice resonant with authority as he gestured toward the forest beyond. "The Brotherhood will find you. Tell them Erik sent you."
They scattered, disappearing into the treeline with varying degrees of haste. Magneto watched them go, his expression impassive. Another facility dismantled. Another group of his people freed from humanity's fear and hatred.
He turned to leave—
—and stopped.
Something pulled at his senses. Not a voice. Not even a sound. It was… magnetic. A resonance in the field he commanded so absolutely, like a ripple across still water. Another consciousness, another presence, reaching out with electromagnetic force.
Calling to him.
Magneto's eyes narrowed. He extended his awareness downward, through the facility's lower levels. Most of the complex had been steel and concrete—easy to sense, easy to manipulate. But deeper, in the sub-basement, he felt something different. Reinforced polymer construction. Non-metallic alloys. The kind of containment designed specifically to hold someone like him.
And from within that prison, the magnetic pulse came again. Deliberate. Intentional.
Interesting.
Magneto descended through the facility, his boots clicking against metal stairs until the architecture shifted to composite materials. The walls here were smooth, reinforced polymer designed to be impervious to his gifts. Emergency lighting flickered overhead, damaged in his assault but still functional. Blood smeared the floor—human blood, he noted—and the door to the final cell hung half-open, its locking mechanism crushed from the inside.
He stepped through.
The chamber beyond was large, clinical, and clearly designed for containment. Electromagnetic dampeners lined the walls—now shattered. Restraint systems hung broken and twisted. And in the center of the room, surrounded by dried blood and the wreckage of scientific equipment, it stood.
Five feet, three inches tall. Quadrupedal, with a body that seemed carved from living steel. Four massive legs ending in clawed appendages, each step producing a deep, resonant thud that spoke of weight far beyond what its size suggested—easily over a thousand pounds. Its body was a geometric construction of metallic blue-gray armor plating, and its face bore a stark, X-shaped mark across a flat surface studded with red eyes.
When it turned to regard him, those eyes blazed with fury.
A sound emerged from the creature—static and sharp, like metal scraping across metal, modulated into something that might have been language. The anger in that voice needed no translation.
Magneto raised one hand, palm outward—a gesture of peace. "I am not with them," he said calmly. "I came to free prisoners. I did not expect to find you."
The creature's eyes fixed on him, and Magneto felt another pulse of magnetic force—not an attack, but a probe. Testing. Analyzing. The electromagnetic signature was extraordinary. Whatever this being was, it commanded magnetic and psychic forces with an sophistication that rivaled his own.
Magneto took a step closer, his mind racing. The GSA had captured this creature. Studied it. And judging by the blood, the broken equipment, and the absolute carnage in this cell, their subject had objected violently to their methods.
"They imprisoned you," Magneto said, his voice taking on a harder edge. "Experimented on you. Treated you as a thing to be dissected and understood." He gestured to the ruins around them. "I know this story well. It is the story of my people—mutants, deemed dangerous simply for existing, locked away and tormented by those who fear what they do not understand."
His eyes swept the carnage again—the dried blood, the shattered equipment, the bodies that had likely been dragged away before his arrival. "And you made them pay for it. Good."
The creature's stance shifted slightly. Still defensive, but… listening.
Magneto continued, his words smooth and strategic. "You are powerful. I felt your call from three levels above. Your command over electromagnetic forces is remarkable." He extended his own power, reaching for the wreckage around them. The polymer construction resisted him, as designed—but the scientific equipment scattered across the floor was another matter. Even here, the instruments needed some metal: circuit boards, sensor wiring, data chips. With visible effort, he lifted fragments of the electronics—small components spinning in a shaky orbit, fighting against the dampening field that still lingered in the walls. "We are alike in this way. And I believe we share a common enemy—those who would cage us, study us, use us for their own ends."
Another sound from the creature, less hostile now. More… curious.
"My name is Magneto," he said, meeting those crimson eyes. "I lead a group called the Brotherhood of Mutants. We fight for the right of evolved beings to exist without persecution. Without imprisonment. Without humanity's chains." He lowered the orbiting metal slowly to the ground. "You are clearly intelligent. Powerful. And more than willing to defend yourself with lethal force when necessary."
He took another step forward. "Join me. Together, we can ensure that places like this are wiped from the face of the Earth. That those who would cage and torment our kind pay the price for their cruelty. That we carve out a world where we hold the power, not them."
The creature's eyes studied him for a long moment. Then it moved—each step a thunderous impact—approaching until they stood face to face. This close, Magneto could feel the sheer density of its body, the electromagnetic field that surrounded it like an aura.
And then—
A presence brushed against his mind. Not magnetic. Psychic. The creature was a telepath as well as a magnetic entity, and it was reaching out with surprising precision.
Images flooded Magneto's consciousness. Not words, but concepts and memories: A proud species of超-intelligent beings. A world beyond this one, impossibly distant. Capture by armed humans. The cold steel of restraints. Needles. Pain. Rage building until containment systems shattered under telekinetic and magnetic fury. Bodies crumpling. Blood. And now… this moment. This opportunity.
But also: limits. A line this being would not cross.
Magneto's eyes narrowed as he parsed the telepathic impression. "You will fight with me. Kill our oppressors when they threaten us. Dismantle their facilities, free our kind." He paused, sensing resistance in the psychic link. "But you draw the line at extinction. At enslavement of their entire species."
The creature's confirmation came as a surge of telepathic affirmation. Firm. Unyielding.
"Because not all of them are guilty," Magneto said slowly, understanding. "You've known humans who were different. Or you understand that condemning an entire species for the actions of some makes you no better than those who caged you."
Another pulse. Affirmation, tinged with something that might have been approval.
Magneto was silent for a moment, then let out a long breath. "A pragmatist, then. Or perhaps wiser than I give you credit for." He extended his hand. "Very well. An alliance, then. We work together toward mutual goals—freeing the oppressed, punishing the guilty, dismantling systems of persecution. You help me fight for our kind's survival. I help you navigate this world and find… whatever it is you seek here."
He met those crimson eyes directly. "But understand this: where our philosophies diverge, we will each walk our own path. I seek a world where homo superior and beings like you stand above humanity—where we can never be caged again. If that troubles you, so be it. But for now, we have common enemies. That is enough."
The creature regarded his hand for a moment, then lifted one massive clawed leg and placed it carefully against Magneto's palm. The weight was immense, but Magneto held firm. The gesture lasted only a moment before the creature withdrew.
An alliance. Formed in the ruins of a prison, between two beings who commanded the same fundamental force.
"Come," Magneto said, turning toward the exit. "This place is finished, but there are others. Many others. And if you're going to work with me, you'll need a name I can pronounce."
The creature followed, each step echoing through the polymer corridors. Another static utterance—and with it, a psychic impression of identity.
Metagross.
"Metagross," Magneto repeated, testing the name. "Very well. Welcome to the Brotherhood."
They emerged from the facility side by side, the master of magnetism and the creature of living steel. Behind them, the black site smoldered in ruin. Ahead, the world waited—full of those who would fear them, fight them, try to cage them.
Let them try.
For the first time in weeks, Erik Lehnsherr allowed himself a genuine smile. The GSA had sought to weaponize whatever forces were bringing these creatures into the world. Instead, they had simply added to his arsenal.
And more importantly, they had given him an ally who understood the cost of imprisonment. Who would fight for freedom, even with reservations about the methods.
Perhaps, Magneto thought as they walked into the winter morning, this strange new world of impossible creatures held more opportunities than threats.
Time would tell.