Shattered Steel

My villain is Magneto AKA Erik Lehnsherr. This short story is set three years after the end of X-Men: First Class. I was going to base it on the time just before Days of Future Past but I was worried about spoilers ;)

The boy's eyes glitter with anticipation. I gulp and rub my hands together at the sight of him. I sense his anger; his rage at the humans who have held us down for the three years since Cuba. They want to destroy us and in fact they believe that they can destroy us - morons. This young man, however, has power and can destroy whatever he chooses.

Including my toaster.

"Is that really necessary?" I holler. The sound of the fire beams thundering into my defenceless roster all but drowns out my objection. My flat is an absurd backdrop for this demonstration of the young man's abilities. A couch, a table, some chairs and a television do not match the light show being performed before my eyes.

"You asked to see what I can do, Erik," he replies innocently.

"Yes, but I like toast," I murmur.

When he is finally finished, I flick the remains of the toaster into the bin he clicks open and sigh. He could have just grilled a piece of bread. He'd have rendered the toaster obsolete but at least it would still be in one piece.

"So what's your name?" I ask.

His long black hair swooshes as he flicks his head around to face me. His cheekbones are harsh and appeared almost as sharp as axes. There was a menacing light in his eyes that flicks around the room in a frenzy.

"My name is Incineriol," he shrugs.

I've heard worse.

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"So what's your plan?" I grunt.

We are trudging through a forest behind a wide sweeping building - God only knows what it is. Windows dot it like freckles on a ginger kid's nose and the walls are painted a similar faun shade to the bark of the trees we duck under and haul ourselves over. I have no inkling as to my current location. We were in New York only an hour ago. One second, I was eating cereal, the next Azazel had his hand on my shoulder and was teleporting me somewhere else entirely. That is just low. In fact, Azazel does not take much coaxing to be bribed - it's just plain lazy. I think I admire Incineriol's mutation more than I admire the man himself.

"It's probably best I don't tell you," Incineriol murmurs, "I don't anticipate problems but if we do encounter any it's best if you can't be questioned."

"Yeah, yeah, I know the drill," I mutter. You'd think I wasn't the leader of the Brotherhood. Who is he to talk to me this way? I would hang him by the chain slung around his neck if his mutation wasn't so useful.

"Come on," Incineriol whispered suddenly, "It's this way."

He zips behind a row of particularly dense trees and crouches at the end of the row. He moves like a tornado and makes me feel ancient. I trundle along behind him and wonder what on Earth he needs with me. I assume he wants to start a fire. Why does he need metal manipulated? I can't do much more than follow, however. Well, it's not as if he could prevent me from leaving but I have absolutely no money on me and anyone on the street would recognise me as the man suspected of assassinating JFK. I really should clear that up.

He continues to dash along the grass at the foot of the vast wall that sweeps along the courtyard. The sky is a blank white but I reckon the day will end nowhere near as dull as it has begun. He kneels by a neat square whole at the foot of the building rising barely about a foot and a half from the ground and gestures to me to do the same. I do so, but I am not complying. I am eager to show humans what we can do and Incineriol seems to have a way to do it. If that means he doesn't tell me, then fine by me.

"What is it you want?" I grunt.

"What do you think?" He points indignantly at the iron bars of what I'm beginning to suspect is a prison bar window. Does he want to break someone out? Does he think I have time to waste on lowlife criminals? Well, they can only be so lowlife if they're required to be cooped up in what is clearly a government stronghold.

I groan. I am definitely going to do as he says. Of course, I could turn around and walk away - this shrimp couldn't stop me - but if he has some way to show the humans they can't mess with us, then I am in. I tense my muscles and grapple with the air. The hold I feel on the bars is like an elastic band, which will snap if I push myself too far. Luckily, this is child's play. The bars have been wrenched out of the ground before he has time to tell me where to put them so I hurl them at the forest. There is a satisfying plop as they drop into a stream.

"What's next?" I grumble.

Far from hauling a worthless scumbag out of the cell, he shimmies through the gap into it and beckons for me to follow. I roll my eyes but lower myself into the dank room. At least he isn't constantly nagging at me to do what is right for the collective good. Sometimes, Charles, there is no such thing as 'collective' in the world.

The cell we have landed in is clean and clinical - furnished by a toilet strapped to the wall with an embedded basin and a lone bed hammered to the floor a few feet away from the window. They're lucky they never tried to keep Alex Summers in here. Havoc would have blown his way out in seconds.

My attention is whipped back to reality by a quick blast in the wall from Incineriol's hands. He has smashed a fist-shaped hole into the thick plaster of the wall and exposed a forest of leads and cables.

"Get me the red one," he commands.

I have no desire to be commanded. I cannot be commanded. I have to clamp my hand to my side to stop myself from throwing him at the wall. I also take extreme objection to blindly carrying out a plan with no knowledge of its implications. I am no slave. If he thinks I am, he is as much of a moron as the humans.

"Why?" I grate.

"Give me the wire and I'll fry it. That will set off a chain reaction that I've put in place over my time as a security guard here and the whole building will go up in flames," he explains, as if he is going over the rules of a board game.

I resent my deep gasp of fright. I hate to show weakness, especially to maniacs.

"What building is this?" I ask casually.

"The Parliament buildings. In London." He shrugs. I could just throttle him. Does he not get how idiotic it is to not only destroy one of the key buildings of the world but to get ourselves blown up alongside it? What kind of statement is that? That is not an act of war. That is simply evil.

"Okay, let me make this clear," I hiss, "I am not a terrorist."

"Charles is up there. Many mutants."

"Charles is practically my brother!" I exclaim. I had in fact no idea that Charles is in London. I'm glad I asked for the details of his plan. I murmur, "You would destroy your own kind just to make a statement?"

His eyes glitter in the darkness and I shy away involuntarily. I am not an easily frightened man, but there is something deeply unnerving about this man.

"What does it matter?" he whispers, "None of our lives mean anything. Everything is random and everyone will come to dust. If everything is random, what difference does it make what I do? We are all the same. Mutants and humans are as pointless as each other. If the humans and the mutants are destroyed together, nobody comes out on top. Nobody wins. Nobody is superior."

I shuffle back, hoping it is too dark for him to see my panic. He is a madman. I am trapped in a jail cell with a madman - a nihilistic madman who is set on destroying as much of the world as he can.

"And if I don't help you your plan won't work?" I spit.

He shakes his head and I know what I must do. I scramble onto the bed and spring up until I am level with the gap. I reach out madly for the bars I tossed into the stream and pull myself with all my might towards them. I hear him chanting something about my cowardice, that I sympathise with humans. The elastic of my grip wrenches at my shoulder and I hear muscle tissue ripping with the strain of holding myself up. I bash through the gap and tumble onto the grass.

I try to let go of the bars now that I am out but my arms are numb. I am dragged by the force of the contracting elastic grip over the stumps of trees and flop ungracefully onto the rocks of the stream. My head thumps into something iron - the bars, presumably - and I clench my stomach muscles to whirl myself around. The bars are dragged out of the water with me and I kick at the force that holds them to me. I don't see them smash back into place but I hear the ringing. Incineriol will not be murdering mutants today.

With the last of my strength I wriggle out of the stream and flop onto my back. I am broken. But it's better me broken than my race.

(1659 words)