Magneto's POV
I woke, staring up at grey, cloud-choked skies that drowned my senses: the unnatural shapes of the clouds, the muted sunlight, even the magnetic field itself.
It felt nothing like Earth. The metal here was tougher, far more resistant to my influence. And yet, I felt stronger than ever—fuller. My reach extended farther than it ever had before, brushing against the edges of this rather odd slice of reality. Its strange shape had given it away.
This must be the personal dimension Pietro and his sister had told me so much about. Dante must have brought me here to recover after my infusion.
I shut my eyes and searched for him, but only found others like me—enhanced and mutants in the dozens—gathered around a small mansion at the center of the dimension. Tugging on the thousands of metallic molecules permeating my cells, I pulled myself upright and paused when I noticed something most distressing.
At the far edge of Dante's domain, there were nearly a thousand of my kind. Their mind was shut down, and they floated in some kind of stasis field encased by metal. They floated alongside objects of great power.
My lips twisted into a snarl.
He was enslaving my people, and the others were helping him?
No. Jean Grey must have been keeping them docile. For all their faults, the X-Men would never willingly do this.
This was all Dante.
I landed hard enough to split the Island I woke up on and drew out metal from its depths.
Heat flushed through me as I melted the raw iron and reshaped it into a helmet—my helmet. It was perfectly shaped to block psychic intrusion.
It was essential if I was going to fight Grey.
I took off, carving through the air, rapidly approaching the edge of the dimension where the imprisoned mutants waited.
But someone arrived before I did.
He sat at the island's edge, legs dangling over the void, scrolling through his phone. Rin glanced up when I stopped and blinked.
"Goddamn," he said. "The boss really is a miracle worker. You don't look a day over thirty-five. And that bod? I'm a bit jealous."
"Step aside, boy," I snapped. "Your master may have given me power, but he does not own my soul."
He squinted, glanced behind him, then laughed. In the far interior of the island, hundreds of pods were stacked atop one another, covered in runes of dizzying complexity and pulsing with power that made me wary.
"Let me guess," he said. "You're here to rescue the 'prisoners.'"
"I refuse to stand idle while my kind suffers," I said. "That was why I entertained Dante's proposal in the first place. I see now that he is just like every other human who's tasted power—self-interested, willing to do unspeakable horrors for the smallest advantage."
Rin rolled his eyes. "Jesus. You really are like a soap opera protagonist. Think for a second. The boss brought you here knowing how your power works. Do you really think he would have risked it if he had something to hide?"
I frowned. "Then why are they—"
"In magic pods?" he interrupted. "I only half understand the magic tech, but it's meant to keep them breathing, healthy, and sedated until we can figure out how to reintegrate them into society."
His words struck me as odd, and I truly examined them for the first time. Their faces were the only parts visible from this distance. Many were prematurely aged, most were emaciated, with dark circles under their eyes. One girl bore a brand across her face.
"They were slaves?" I asked quietly.
"Ding. Ding. Ding," he smiled. "You missed a lot while you were out. The boss took his first trip down below, and let's just say your little side deal couldn't have come at a better time."
"He told you about Krakoa?"
"Yup," Rin nodded. "We're tight like that. That's why I'm on babysitting duty."
Realization dawned on me. "He knew I would react this way."
Rin shrugged. "You do have a history of flying into murderous rage at the sight of mutant suffering you didn't personally inflict. His words, not mine."
A growl nearly escaped my lips.
"But how can I be sure this isn't some elaborate deception?" I demanded, more as a test than true doubt.
"He figured you'd say that," Rin replied, producing a tablet from his ring.
"A list of every mutant there. Names and faces. Every one of them was abducted or related to someone who was. Verify it yourself."
I floated the tablet toward me and stared at the screen. Nancy Tillman. I knew the name. Hydrokinesis. I had tracked her for weeks before she vanished.
I swallowed. There were others I recognized.
Had he put this list together to gauge my response?
"One last thing," Rin said, activating his ring again. Space rippled, then expanded, and a perfectly folded set of leather-and-plate armor dropped at his feet. A helmet crowned the set. Black, with silver-white accents. No visible runes.
"He figured you should have one, now that you're part of the team," Rin said. "Five Power Amplification Runes, five Precision Runes, a Great Protection Array, and an energy core you can fuel with your personal heat. It's intuitive—assuming you don't tear yourself apart."
It all felt alien. No one simply handed over power like this, not at this scale.
Rin checked his wrist and looked up at me with a bright, calculating smile. "Welcome to the team. Makes dating coworkers a lot easier."
I scowled. "The Brotherhood and your team will not merge. This was a transaction. Nothing more."
"That's what the widows said," Rin replied dismissively, eyes back on his phone.
His tone made me want to throttle him—partly because it was insulting, partly because he was correct.
I was beginning to understand Fury's frustration.
"Portal should be here in… now," Rin said.
Reality tore open in front of him, stabilizing into a spherical gateway leading somewhere familiar—the park where Dante and I had met before my transformation.
"I will review the list," I said. "If your master is lying—"
"He's not," Rin interrupted. "So are you going through or not? The enchantment keeps the gate open for thirty-six more seconds."
I swallowed my objections—and my anger. I had gained everything I wanted: power, support to found a mutant state for nothing really. Yet I couldn't shake the feeling that Dante had made the better bargain.
As I drifted toward the tear in space, I reminded myself that I had contingencies. I was now the second-strongest Omega-level mutant on Earth. I could strip the entire planet of its magnetic field if I were so inclined.
I was power-incarnate.
And with my helmet, I was immune to psychic domination.
Should Dante ever stand in my way, he'll regret giving me this power.
But will it be enough? A small voice asked at the back of my head. I had no answer.
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