Chapter 17

The X-Jet rose from the villa's lawn like a black phantom, its engines emitting a low thrum that was felt more than heard. It climbed for a moment, a dark silhouette against the moonlit clouds, then simply… vanished.

Wanda pressed her small face against the cold glass of the second-floor window, her breath fogging the pane. "Professor Jean," she whispered, her voice small. "Where are they going?"

Jean came and stood behind her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Ethan and the teachers are going to deal with some very bad men, sweetie," she said softly. "They'll be back before you know it."

"When I get bigger, I'm going to go with Ethan to fight the bad guys, too," Wanda declared, her little fist clenching with determination. It wasn't about the fight; it was about being with him.

Jean smiled and knelt down, her voice gentle. "Then you'll have to train very hard. I hear your power is a bit like mine. You can move things with your mind, can't you?"

Wanda's determination faltered for a second. "Only a little," she mumbled, looking at her hands. A faint, scarlet wisp of energy coiled around her fingers. Across the room, a teacup on the table wobbled, lifted an inch into the air, and then clattered back down. "I can only move a small cup."

"Not everyone is a natural like Ethan," Jean said, though the words felt inadequate. "Power takes time to grow. We'll practice, you and I. And one day, you'll be strong enough to be an X-Man, just like him, and help everyone who needs it."

If Ethan had been there to hear it, he would have choked. Jean Grey, host to the cosmic Phoenix Force, and Wanda Maximoff, a future conduit of reality-warping Chaos Magic, talking about his talent. The irony was thicker than the walls of Magneto's prison.

Wanda nodded, her resolve returning. "I'll train hard," she promised. She looked back out the window at the empty sky. "Brother Ethan," she prayed in a secret whisper. "Please come back safe." She glanced over at the other bed, where Pietro was fast asleep, snoring softly. A flash of annoyance crossed her face. While he's out saving the world, she thought, this one stole the last pudding cup after dinner. Brothers.

Onboard the jet, the atmosphere was thick with tension. Storm, her expression serious, was helping Ethan into a small, black uniform made of a strange, dense material that felt like cool, flexible rubber.

"Professor Ororo, I really don't think I need this," Ethan said, trying to squirm away as she adjusted a shoulder strap.

"This suit is made of a Nomex-Kevlar weave. It offers significant resistance to ballistic and energy attacks," she stated, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Your safety is paramount. You will wear it."

"Alright, alright," he relented. It was pointless to explain that his clothes would be obliterated and replaced by a martial arts gi the moment he powered up. Still, maybe the suit's protective qualities would carry over somehow. Or it would be useful after the template wore off. He tried to take the chest piece from her. "I can put it on myself."

"It has a sequence of magnetic clasps. It's tricky until you learn the pattern," Storm insisted, ignoring his protest and expertly locking the armor in place.

Ethan sighed internally. He really needed to hit a growth spurt. His perpetually boyish appearance, a combination of his past life's late-blooming genetics and this new Saiyan bloodline, made everyone treat him like a fragile doll. That, and the tail. It was hard to look intimidating with a tail.

Across the cabin, Logan was leaning back, a cigarillo dangling from his lips, a thick, mocking smirk on his face as he watched the scene.

"Logan, what have we said about smoking on the jet?" Ethan snapped, his voice sharp. "In case you hadn't noticed, there's a child present!"

He gestured to himself. Storm turned and shot Logan a glare that could have frozen magma.

"Yeah, yeah. You're a kid," Logan grumbled, his smirk vanishing. He pinched the lit end of his cigarillo, extinguishing it in his calloused palm, and pocketed the butt.

Three hours later, the jet descended over the vast, snow-dusted wilderness of the Canadian Rockies. It settled silently in a thicket of pine trees a few kilometers from the imposing concrete face of the Alkali Lake dam. Inside the cabin, a holographic map of the structure shimmered in the air.

"The entire base is subterranean," Storm explained, her finger tracing a line on the hologram. "There's only one viable entrance for a group our size: the main spillway. The problem is, the second we show our faces, Stryker can hit a button and open the floodgates. We'd be crushed by a wall of water before we got a hundred feet."

"Kurt?" Jean would have asked. Logan voiced it for her. "Can ya pop us inside?"

Nightcrawler shook his head vigorously, his yellow eyes wide with fear. "Nein! I cannot! I must see where I am going, or have been there before. If I try to teleport blind, I could end up inside a concrete wall. Fused." He shuddered at the thought.

"I'll go," Wolverine growled. "Stryker wants me alive. He won't drown his prize specimen."

"A noble, if brutish, offer, Logan," Magneto said with a condescending smirk. "But your plan consists of what, precisely? Announcing your presence and then clawing your way to the control room? It's a gamble. I prefer not to gamble." He gestured to Mystique, who had transformed into a perfect replica of Wolverine. "I, however, have a more elegant solution."

Ethan watched the blue-skinned woman who now wore Logan's face. That power, he thought, is just insane. If she wasn't so dedicated to Erik's fanatical cause, she could live a thousand lives, be anyone she wanted, utterly invisible to the world.

No one argued with Magneto's plan. It was the best they had. They sat in tense silence for twenty long, agonizing minutes. Every creak of the jet, every whisper of the wind outside, sounded unnaturally loud. Then, a cool, professional voice crackled over their comms.

"The floodgate controls are disabled," Mystique reported. "You have a clear path."

The jet's rear ramp lowered with a hiss. Ethan took a deep breath of the frigid mountain air and silently pulled the ridiculous Mickey Mouse sunglasses from his pocket, slipping them on. Outside, a brilliant, full moon hung in the sky like a giant silver eye.

"I really hope I don't need to do this," he murmured to himself.

As the team approached the spillway, they were met by a line of heavily armed soldiers in black tactical gear. Magneto simply smiled.

"Weak," he said, his voice laced with contempt. "And so very arrogant."

He raised a single, gloved hand. There was a sudden, synchronized click as the safety pins on every single grenade hanging from the soldiers' belts were pulled free. In the same instant, their rifles were wrenched from their hands, spinning in mid-air to aim back at their former owners.

The night erupted. A cacophony of dozens of small explosions and the deafening chatter of automatic rifle fire turned the entrance into a slaughterhouse. In seconds, it was over.

Ethan stared at the carnage, a shiver running down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. This was power. Raw, terrifying, and wielded with the casual grace of a conductor leading an orchestra. He's a walking, talking counter to all modern technology, he thought, his own energy-blasting abilities suddenly feeling quaint. He remembered the movie scenes—the Golden Gate Bridge ripping from its foundations, an entire stadium flying through the air. He felt a surge of gratitude that this Magneto, as terrifying as he was, was still a pale shadow of his comic book counterpart. This was a monster he could, perhaps, survive. The other one? Not a chance.