Warsaw Ghetto, Occupied Poland (1941)
The night was not just dark; it was suffocating.
Silence in the ghetto didn't mean peace; it meant the beast was on his next hunt.
The air suffocated with coal dust and filth.
In the distance, the looming chimney of the camp belched thick, grey smoke. It was a factory of death.
In the center of the camp stood the Complex.
Fortified, sterile, and impenetrable. It wasn't just a prison; it was a laboratory.
Ernst moved through the outer corridor.
His steps were measured, his breathing controlled. He carried a small, nondescript medical case.
He checked his wrist: 20:00 hours.
Bang
A gunshot echoed from the laboratory.
It was followed by a sound of screeching, torturous groans of metal folding upon itself like paper.
Then, a child's scream.
Ernst stopped. His eyes narrowed.
'I'm late.'
He adjusted his collar, his mind racing through contingencies.
The timeline was shifting.
In the original timeline, Sebastian Shaw killed the mother to unlock the boy's power much later.
It would set up a chain of events would begin that would end with a coin through Shaw's skull.
Ernst couldn't let his father die.
Not yet. He needed the Hellfire Club.
He composed his face into a mask of urgency and reached for the heavy steel door.
Before he could knock, it swung open.
A man stepped out, dragging a boy by the arm.
The boy was roughly fourteen, thin and malnourished, but his eyes... they burned with a terrifying, shark-like fury.
Tears streamed down his dirty face, but beneath the sadness lay a chaotic, raw power.
Erik Lehnsherr. The future Magneto.
Holding him was a man who radiated arrogance like heat.
Sebastian Shaw, smiled, looking entirely unbothered by the trauma he had just inflicted.
Shaw paused, surprised.
"Ernst? What are you doing here?"
Ernst ignored the question, his gaze flickering briefly to Erik, then to Shaw.
He assessed his father instantly.
Shaw was powerful, an alpha-level energy absorber, but his arrogance was a fatal flaw.
He believed he was a god among insects.
"Father," Ernst said, his voice low and steady.
"We need to speak. Privately."
Shaw raised an eyebrow. He gestured to two guards waiting in the hall.
"Take the boy to his cell. Restrain him no metal."
The soldiers dragged the thrashing Erik away.
But his eyes remained locked on Shaw, promising a vengeance that would shake the world.
"Come inside," Shaw said, ushering Ernst into the lab.
The room was a slaughterhouse.
Office furniture was overturned. Filing cabinets were twisted into abstract art.
Two German soldiers lay on the floor, their heads crushed.
Their steel helmets had been imploded by an invisible force, collapsing their skulls.
Near the desk, a middle-aged woman lay in a spreading pool of crimson.
Edie Lehnsherr.
She was pale, her breathing shallow and ragged.
"Well?"
Shaw walked over to a sidebar and poured two glasses of red wine, stepping casually over a dead soldier.
"You have my attention."
Ernst walked past the wine, crouching beside the woman.
He checked her carotid artery.
'Faint. Thready. But there.'
"The boy," Ernst said, keeping his tone clinical.
"He did this to the soldiers?"
"Magnificent, isn't it?" Shaw beamed, swirling his wine.
"I told you he was special. He needed a push. I shot the mother, and the grief unlocked the gene. He crushed those helmets like tin foil."
"You were reckless," Ernst stated.
Shaw's smile faded. "Excuse me?"
Ernst stood up, facing his father.
"You've unlocked a weapon, yes. But you've also pointed it directly at your own throat."
"He is a child," Shaw scoffed.
"And I am... evolved. What can he do to me? I absorb energy. Kinetic, thermal, radiation. He can throw all the metal in the world at me, and I will only get stronger."
"He doesn't control metal, Father," Ernst lied smoothly.
He knew exactly how Shaw's powers worked, and more importantly, how they failed.
"I analyzed the blood samples you sent to the Zurich facility. His X-gene doesn't manipulate iron; it manipulates the electromagnetic spectrum. Magnetism."
Shaw paused, the glass halfway to his lips.
"Magnetic fields are fundamental forces," Ernst pressed, stepping closer.
"You can absorb the energy of a bullet or a punch. But can you absorb the force that holds atoms together? If he masters his power, he won't just throw tanks at you. He could rip the iron right out of your blood. He is a hard counter to your physiology."
A flicker of genuine concern crossed Shaw's face.
The arrogance cracked, just for a second.
He looked at the door where Erik had exited, a glint of murderous intent forming.
"Then he is a liability," Shaw murmured, his hand tightening on the glass.
"I should finish him now."
"That's a waste," Ernst interjected quickly.
"He has the potential to be the strongest lieutenant you've ever had. You don't destroy a weapon like that. You control it."
Ernst pointed to the dying woman on the floor.
"That is your leash."
Shaw looked down at Edie.
"She's dead weight."
"She is leverage," Ernst corrected.
"If she dies, the boy has nothing left to lose. He becomes a creature of pure vengeance. But if she lives... if you hold her life in your hands... he will do anything you say."
Shaw considered this, looking at the woman with renewed interest.
"She's bled out. Even I can't fix that."
"I can."
Ernst knelt and opened his medical case.
"Hydra has been experimenting with cryogenic stasis in the Alps. Flash freezing to preserve life. I brought a prototype compound."
He didn't wait for permission.
Ernst pulled out a syringe filled with a translucent blue liquid and injected it directly into Edie's heart.
He then grabbed a scalpel.
"Hold the wound closed," Ernst ordered.
Surprisingly, Shaw obeyed, pressing a cloth against the bullet hole.
Ernst worked with the precision of a machine.
He wasn't relying on miracles; he was relying on superior knowledge and advanced biochemistry.
He clamped the artery, removed the slug, and sutured the primary tear in under four minutes.
"The compound will lower her metabolic rate to near zero," Ernst explained, wiping the blood from his hands.
"She won't wake up, but she won't die. We put her in a cryo-chamber. Tell the boy she's in a coma. Tell him that if he obeys, if he trains, if he serves you... Maybe one day you'll let him see her."
Shaw stood up, a slow, predatory smile returning to his face. He looked at his son with new appreciation.
"Cruel," Shaw chuckled.
"I like it. It keeps the anger sharp, but directs it where we want it."
"Exactly," Ernst said, packing his kit.
"A dog needs a bone, Father. But a wolf needs a reason not to bite the hand that feeds it."
Shaw nodded, looking at the unconscious woman.
"Very well. Prepare the transport. We will ship her to the private facility tonight. As far as the boy knows, she is dead... until I decide otherwise."
"Smart," Ernst said.
Inside, Ernst let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.
'Step one complete.'
Magneto's mother was alive. He had a bargaining chip for the future. And Shaw believed it was all his idea.
"By the way," Shaw said, turning back to the wine.
"You're getting good at this, Ernst."
"I had a good teacher," Ernst replied, his face an unreadable mask.
——-
Omake(Simplified):
Somewhere in the multiverse, Charles Xavier just felt a disturbance in the Force.
By saving Edie, Ernst just deleted the entire plot of X-Men: First Class. No coin through the skull. No Nazi hunting in Argentina.
Shaw: "I was going to kill her."
Ernst: "That's short-term thinking, Father. Think of the ROI (Return on Investment)."
Shaw: "You are boring me with math."
Ernst: "If she lives, Erik works for free."
Shaw: "I love math."
Me: "Capitalism at its finest!"
—-
Authors note:
Me here. I have analyzed the physics of 'Writer Motivation.'
It turns out, my typing speed is directly correlated to the number of shiny blue rocks (Power Stones) in my inventory.
200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
10 reviews = 1 bonus Chapter