I followed Xavier, and Hisako followed me, following Xavier. It didn't take us long to catch up. The terrain wasn't exactly wheelchair-friendly. He didn't seem to have much of a problem with us tagging along, which was good because I figured that if he really didn't want us around, he'd just use his telepathy to turn us around or something. If anything, he seemed receptive to our presence, asking us questions on how things had been going lately.
So, there I was, walking alongside the man that had established my awesome mutant superhero school. I was face-to-face with the man that had done more to drag mutant-human relations into the modern age than anyone else I could readily name, and I had no idea what to say. Did you ever meet someone that you had no shortage of things to ask, and then when you finally met them you drew a blank? I wasn't the strongest conversationalist at the best of times, and being put on the spot didn't help.
"What have you been doing here?" Hisako went for the simplest question first, beating me to the punch.
"Look around you, Hisako," Professor Xavier said, prompting us to stop and take in the depressingly bleak sight of Genosha, "I feel my energies would be better focused here than at the school. I'm not needed there. Not like here."
Point taken. However bad things had gotten at school, we had people to handle it. We'd made it through. And nothing that had happened at school could ever equal what had happened on Genosha. Even the Purifiers and Sapien League attacking was kid's stuff compared to the attack that had happened here.
"But why did you even leave?" I felt myself ask, "Anytime I try to bring you up, all I get is non-answers."
"Fractured trust, children," Xavier said with a tired sigh, "Years of half-truths, things hidden from my students for what I believed was their own good. When they grew old enough to look beneath the surface, I failed to grow with them. I failed to be the man they believed I was."
I felt my brow curve in annoyance, "...You just said a whole lot of nothing, you know that?" Why did smart people think they had to use 50 words to say what they could in 5?
At that, Xavier chuckled, "I suppose I did," He replied, sounding amused, "Rest assured, there are very personal details there that they would likely not appreciate me sharing."
Oh, I would rest assured. Rest assured that the very next time this motherfucker came up back at school, I was pressing the issue. But that was something to keep in mind for later. In the present, we were heading to where the professor was staying.
He brought us to a villa overlooking the water at Hammer Bay. A brave choice for living quarters, given that I wouldn't have trusted anything built near a cliff to not fall into the water. The house looked torn apart from the outside, but given the circumstances it was nearly pristine on the inside. Not just livable, but clean.
"Make yourselves comfortable," Professor Xavier told us as he wheeled out of the room, "I'm certain you two are quite tired."
"Yes," Hisako groaned, falling into the closest seat she could reach. I was fine, on the other hand, though I may have underestimated how tired all of that walking right after sneaking onto a quarantined island would have been to a person with more standard conditioning, "Thank God. These shoes were not meant for this. Why didn't we wear our uniforms, Bel?"
"Didn't seem like a good idea," I said, sitting down with her as she went to pull her boots off, "This place was all gung-ho against the X-Men when it was still a country," What were the chances the beliefs of the survivors had softened? It wasn't like the X-Men had saved them or provided relief, "You have your luggage. Why didn't you put real shoes on before we got here like your boy?" I asked, pointing at my own feet.
"Because shut up," She replied, sighing in relief as she rubbed her soles, "If I have blisters…" She let the impotent threat go unfinished.
"A blister is the least of our concerns," I said, taking a moment to bask in the silence of her company before ruining it, "So, what do you think?"
Hisako immediately cottoned on to what I was talking about, "That we shouldn't be talking about the world's most famous telepath just because he left the room."
I scoffed at her. While she was more sensible, I was the more paranoid one. It suited me better, "If he really had it out for us, he'd know what I was thinking anyway," I said.
"You don't trust him?"
No, I didn't. Because I didn't know him, "I'll just say, it might have been a bit premature for you to take your shoes off," I said. We might have needed to jet at a moment's notice. I didn't want to feel that way, but being suspicious of new people was my default setting at this point, "Anyway, we need an exit strategy for if we have to leave without Quire."
"True," Hisako admitted, "Unless you learned to fly while I wasn't looking."
"If I ever learn how to fly, you're gonna be, like, the third or fourth person who finds out."
"Third or fourth?"
I started listing off everyone who would have learned before her, "Eddie, to help work out the bugs. Laura, because who do you think I'm taking on my first flight? Ruth will probably be first, because if I learn how to fly, she'll know before I do," I explained before giving her a nudge, "Then, you."
Our little conversation ended when we were joined by another, but it wasn't Xavier. Instead of the whirring of his wheelchair, we heard footsteps.
A tall, well-built older man with silver hair and blue eyes entered. His clothing was baggy and casual, and he didn't seem particularly notable at first glance, but if he had access to wherever Charles Xavier seemed to be staying, he had to be important to some degree.
Also, the guy had a presence about him that I couldn't place. Something that made it feel like you had to pay attention to him. Physical charisma, I guess, but it seemed like more than that. Fitting, considering who it was.
It seemed like he was sizing us up. That was fine, because we were doing the same. Hisako's hand edged near my closest arm, so that she could pull me behind her just in case the man was unfriendly – our standard duo strat. She would shield me, and I would fire blasts through her armor while she was positioned between me and whatever our enemy was.
"...Um, hi?" I said, trying to break the tension.
The man raised a brow, "Hello," The man said, seemingly amused. Once he saw whatever he'd been trying to analyze, he hummed and went about his business, heading out to the balcony that overlooked a good portion of Hammer Bay.
Hisako turned and stared at the man over the back of the couch, "...Is it just me or is something about that guy familiar?"
Yes, considering we'd been running simulations against him since the days when the Danger Room still worked. Hell, I'd had us run sims in the Danger Cave against him last week.
"Picture him with a red outfit, a purple cape, and a big ass helmet," I said.
Smart cookie that she was, Hisako had only needed half of that to put the pieces together. Of course, it also helped that the villa we were in stood in the shadow of a titanic statue of the man, "That's Magneto!" She exclaimed, lowering herself back down behind the couch, as if it would provide sufficient protection. Remember, this girl could summon psionic armor.
I gave her a reassuring pat on the back, "Yep. To be fair, you usually only ever see him when he's throwing pointy metal at us."
"I see you have met Erik," Professor Xavier said as he rolled back into the room, "This is his home. I'm afraid I'm imposing upon his hospitality."
Huh. Well, that made sense, in a weird kind of way. I thought they would be mortal enemies, but then again, what did I know?
"Quentin was right?" Hisako whispered to herself, "H-He was right? Magneto is still alive?"
Having heard his name previously yelled from inside, Magneto had since come inside, "Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated," He said with a small smile, before it quickly faded and he turned back to his view of the city, "Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my country."
Hisako elbowed me in the side, "How are you not freaking out about this?"
I shrugged, not really having an answer for her. At this point though, if someone told me another person was dead, I'd need to see a body, otherwise I'd be skeptical, "As far-fetched as it is that we found him, we did come here looking for him in the first place."
Magneto seemed surprised by that, "You came looking for me? Not Charles?"
"We didn't even know Professor Xavier was here," Hisako said, "And Quentin was the one who wanted to find you. We expected, at best, we'd find your body in a pile of rubble somewhere."
Magneto replied sardonically, "Had you arrived months ago, that was where you would have found me. And a part of me wishes that was where I remained."
I looked at Hisako, an unspoken conversation shared between us. And it would have been private, had we not been in the presence of a psychic, 'Hear him out, children. That's all I ask. It may teach you something.'
Goddamn telepaths.
"People came here to Genosha because I called them," Magneto continued, none the wiser, "This country was built on the backs of genetically-engineered mutant slaves. The great powers of the world knew that, but they did nothing, because they needed the goods, services, and technology that Genosha provided... and they were afraid of the consequences of any confrontation if those slaves could be reconfigured as warriors."
The country was definitely into some dark stuff back in the day. A quick internet search for anything older than five years before would give you a treasure trove of reading material on very recent human rights violations. News outlets all over the world covered the mutant slavery, then civil war, and that was when Magneto showed up and took over.
"I took my reputation as a monster and blackmailed the United Nations into giving this blighted land to me," He gazed out forlornly at the bleak cityscape, "I hoped to build something lasting; something of value. I wanted to make my children proud. Then a real monster fell from the sky and turned my dream to ashes."
For everything that Charles Xavier had said and done over the years for mutants, it couldn't be ignored that despite his difference in ideology, Magneto had been the closest to making a significant push in a positive direction for mutants than he had. Even if Genosha had wound up becoming a massive beacon for the enemies of mutantkind to attack, much like Xavier's school had been, only turned up times a literal million.
Magneto gazed over at the inactive Wild Sentinel that had razed his adopted homeland, "I could not stop the Sentinels. I could not save my people. Death was a mercy. One I was not given."
I thought about it, how I would have felt if I had been in his shoes. In a way, I almost had been. If the Purifiers and the Sapien League had wiped out the school on my watch, what would have gone through my head? How would I have felt? He couldn't even blame humans for it the way I would have been able to. It had been a mutant that had orchestrated the attack on Genosha. There wasn't even anyone within reach to rightfully lash out at in grief.
How was a leader to react in that instance? When, under your leadership, just about everyone who followed you and believed in you went to their graves, and you survived? That was my worst fear – not that I would be killed, but that what I did or didn't do would get everyone else killed. I obsessed over it, and I had just taken a ground-level tour of that worst fear brought to life 1 million times over.
"You're a better man than me," I muttered aloud before I could think to stop myself. Magneto looked over at me in surprise, and I winced. Hisako always said I lacked a decent filter between my brain and my mouth. Oh well. Better out than in at that point, "I couldn't stay, if it was me. Even if I tried to help, it wouldn't make anything better."
"It doesn't," Magneto admitted, "But it's not about me. I owe the people here my best, even now. Even if they do not want it. And if they hate me for my weakness, that is my penance."
Something about that struck a chord. He was more verbose about it, but that sounded a lot like something that I would have thought. Did Magneto hate himself the way I hated myself? No, he had to hate himself way more. I hadn't dealt with even a fraction of the kind of stuff he had seen. Thank God, it wasn't just a 'me' thing. I don't think he had impostor syndrome though. Still, that kind of put things into perspective for me.