The camp reeked of fear, iron, and smoke.
I stood still for a moment, letting my eyes travel across the barbed wire, the watchtowers, the half-starved prisoners herded together like livestock. Even after everything I had seen—SCPs, gods, demons, Hydra's atrocities—this place still made something cold coil in my chest. Julius stood beside me, arms folded, his expression carved from stone. Behind us, my Red Right Hand moved with quiet precision, weapons lowered but ready, every step calculated.
We weren't here for a raid.
That alone made this worse.
The detector in my hand vibrated softly at first. Then it screamed.
A sharp, rising whine—clear, unmistakable. Within a hundred-meter radius, a mutant. Not theoretical. Not potential. Active.
Julius looked at me slowly."…That's not just an X-gene," he said. "That's powerful."
We followed the signal past guards who never even realized death had already chosen them. Silent takedowns. No alarms. No mercy. We moved through barracks until we reached a corner of the camp that felt… wrong. Metal around us subtly warped. Nails bent. A spoon on the ground trembled.
Then I saw him.
A boy. Twelve at most. Skin pulled tight over bone, eyes hollow with exhaustion and fury barely contained. Shackles on his wrists—thick steel, reinforced. Bent. Not broken, but strained, as if the metal itself was afraid of him.
Erik Lehnsherr.
The future Magneto.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
I knew the timelines. I knew the death toll. Cities torn apart, governments broken, humanity divided by his rage. If I ended it here—one decision, one bullet—the future would be cleaner. Safer. Countless lives saved.
Julius broke the silence first."We can end it now," he said quietly. "No Magneto. No mutant wars. No millions dead."
The boy looked up at us then. Not begging. Not crying.
Hating.
Not us. The world.
I felt it then—raw power, untrained but immense, coiled inside him like a star on the verge of collapse. Not evil. Not yet. Just pain, sharpened into something dangerous.
"…Or," I said slowly, "we take responsibility."
Julius turned to me.
"We recruit him," I continued. "We pull him out of this hell. We give him purpose. Control. Discipline. We make him Foundation."
The Red Right Hand didn't react, but I could feel their attention sharpen. This wasn't standard protocol. This was me making a call that would echo through history.
"And if he doesn't show loyalty?" Julius asked.
I didn't hesitate.
"Then we end him ourselves. Cleanly. Before he becomes a god of hatred."
Julius studied Erik for a long moment. The boy met his gaze without fear.
"…Very well," Julius said. "We try."
The shackles fell apart with a metallic scream as Erik's power surged instinctively—then stopped when I raised a hand. He froze, confused, breathing hard.
"You have a choice," I told him, my voice calm, controlled. "Rot here and die forgotten. Or come with us. Learn what you are. Become something more than a victim."
His eyes burned.
"…You'll train," Julius added. "Harder than anyone. You'll be watched. Tested. Judged."
"And if you betray us," I finished, "there will be no second chances."
For the first time, something other than hatred flickered across Erik's face.
Hope.
He nodded once. Sharp. Defiant.
Good.
The camp was erased before dawn. Guards neutralized. Prisoners evacuated through Foundation channels, their existence scrubbed from Hydra and Nazi records alike. Officially, the camp never existed.
Erik Lehnsherr did.
He left that place wearing a Foundation coat far too big for him, flanked by the Red Right Hand, escorted into a future balanced on a knife's edge.
We hadn't stopped Magneto.
We had challenged fate itself.
And for the first time in a long while, even I wasn't sure which of us would win.