Looking at Shaw, who stood frozen before him, a storm of thoughts crossed Erik's mind.
His feelings for the man were an impossible, tangled knot. Shaw was the monster who had murdered his mother, his life's greatest adversary.
Yet, in a twisted way, Shaw had also assumed the role of a father figure, shaping him and guiding his potential.
Suppressing the complex emotions warring within him, Erik took a few steps forward, halting just inches away.
He gently rested his hand against Shaw's face, cradling the heavy Soviet helmet. Even through the metal, it felt like an intimate, tragic farewell.
"If you can hear me," Erik said softly, "I want you to know that I agree with everything you've said. We do represent the future. But... it is regrettable that you took my mother's life."
He reached into his pocket and produced a tarnished Reichsmark.
"Now, I'm returning this to you. I'm going to move this coin. On the count of three."
In the concentration camp, Shaw had ordered a young Erik to move this exact coin. When he failed, his mother paid the price.
Now, Erik intended to use that same coin to finally settle the score.
Observing Erik's actions through Shaw's eyes, Charles Xavier frantically shouted in Erik's mind, desperately attempting to intervene.
But Erik had the helmet on; he was entirely deaf to the telepath's pleas.
Erik pushed the coin forward. It touched Shaw's forehead.
But it didn't pierce the skin. Shaw's dull eyes suddenly sparked with vibrant life.
Simultaneously, miles away on the beach, Charles gasped. The psychic tether he had cast into Shaw's mind was violently seized by an unknown force.
His astral projection was dragged into a dark, terrifying void where a colossal, swirling black hole began to crush his consciousness.
"Gah!" Charles violently severed the connection, his face turning deathly pale.
He collapsed, gasping for air as the echo of a mocking thought reverberated in his skull.
'You're still too naive, little telepath. Stop attempting to control me, or you won't be as fortunate next time.'
"Charles! Are you alright?" Moira rushed to his side amidst the wreckage of the jet, panic etched on her face.
"It's... it's a trap," Charles breathed, clutching his head.
"Shaw is immune to my power. And Erik is in terrible danger."
Back in the submarine, Erik witnessed the life return to Shaw's eyes and immediately sensed the peril.
Exerting every ounce of his magnetic strength, he tried to force the coin through Shaw's skull. It was entirely futile.
Shaw simply raised a hand and flicked his finger against Erik's forehead, returning the kinetic energy he had just absorbed from the coin's pressure.
The impact hit Erik like a cannonball. He was sent flying backward, crashing brutally against the steel bulkhead.
Quickly scrambling to his feet, Erik distanced himself, ripping the helmet off his head.
"Charles!" he yelled, reestablishing the mental link.
"What happened? Why did you let him go?"
"I am so sorry, Erik," Charles's weakened voice echoed in his mind.
"He has some kind of mental black hole in his brain. It devoured my psychic energy. I am completely powerless to assist you."
Shaw didn't press the attack. He simply smiled, smoothing his lapels.
"Erik, I'm delighted to hear that you agree with me," Shaw said warmly.
"However, it seems our personal grievances are a bit harder to reconcile. I've prepared a gift for you; I believe you'll appreciate it."
Shaw could have revealed right then that Erik's mother was alive and safe in cryo-stasis on Skull Island.
But, fearing Erik wouldn't believe him in the heat of battle, he decided to wait until the dust settled to reunite them.
It would prove to be the most fatal miscalculation of his life.
Unaware of the "gift" Shaw meant, Erik remained convinced the man was just taunting him about his mother's murder.
The deep-seated hatred in his heart boiled over. He desperately scanned the room, seeking a way to turn this absolute defeat into a victory.
"You are my most perfect creation, Erik," Shaw continued, stepping forward.
"You understand my heart. I'm thrilled to have you by my side. Mutants are still vulnerable, so internal harmony is crucial. Only through unity can we harness our true strength. The future belongs to us. Let us forge a new world together."
Suddenly, a realization struck Erik like lightning. Shaw absorbed energy through physical contact, making his skin utterly impervious to external attacks.
But did that invulnerability extend to his internal organs? Could he be damaged from the inside out?
Lowering his head to conceal the dark intent in his eyes, Erik magnetically levitated a nail-sized shard of jagged iron into his palm, hiding it from view.
"Come," Shaw said, extending his hand in an inviting gesture.
"Let's create a new world."
Seizing the opportunity, Erik feigned reluctant acceptance. He slowly reached out and placed his hand in Shaw's.
As their palms met, the cold, murderous intent flashed in Erik's eyes.
Shaw was momentarily stunned. In the middle of his victorious speech, he felt a blur of silver light shoot directly upward from Erik's hand.
Caught completely off guard, Shaw felt the foreign object shoot under his chin, pierce the soft tissue of his upper palate, and embed itself deeply into his brain.
I've made such a basic mistake, Shaw thought.
It was his final, fleeting realization before the intense pain was swallowed by absolute darkness.
He collapsed to the floor, dead.
...
A moment later, the air rippled, and Ernst materialized inside the reactor room.
He gazed down at Shaw's lifeless body. A profound sense of dread, instantly eclipsed by a volcanic rage, surged within him.
Ernst knew he had the technology to resurrect his father, but witnessing the murder ignited a primal fury that demanded an immediate outlet.
Erik Lehnsherr was the perfect target.
Erik, who had been completely outmatched by Shaw, stood absolutely no chance against Ernst.
With a flicker of movement faster than the eye could track, Ernst closed the distance and drove a devastating punch into Erik's chest.
"Gah!"
The air ruptured with the impact as Erik was launched into the air.
Before gravity could even begin to pull him down, Ernst vanished and reappeared above him, delivering a brutal, downward kick to his spine.
Erik crashed heavily into the steel floor, rebounding from the force, only to be met by a vicious backhand from the relentless Ernst that sent him skidding across the room.
Despite his blinding fury, a sliver of Ernst's rationality held him back from delivering a lethal blow; he knew Shaw had chosen Erik as his successor, and he knew Shaw could be revived.
Struggling against the onslaught, Erik tried to mount a defense. But the sheer force of the blows had nearly shattered his back, making it impossible to focus his mind enough to control the metal around them.
An overwhelming psychological shadow fell over him; Ernst wasn't just stronger, he was a force of nature. Erik's only goal now was survival.
While Erik had faced Shaw with a suicidal determination, that same intensity vanished against Ernst.
Erik harbored no personal animosity toward the son; his war was with the father.
Thrown against the far wall, Erik finally managed to grasp control of a heavy steel support beam, swinging it like a massive bat to create distance. Ernst casually shattered it with a single punch.
Using the brief delay, Erik manipulated a storm of scattered shrapnel, launching it all at Ernst like a hail of bullets.
Ernst sneered. He pushed his hands outward. A localized repulsion field erupted around him.
The metallic projectiles slammed into the invisible barrier, halting dead in the air, completely unable to penetrate the three-meter radius.
Erik felt a sickening knot of despair in his chest. Ernst could teleport, absorb energy, possess superhuman speed, and now he was generating force fields?
What else did this monster have up his sleeve?
Abandoning any thought of fighting back, Erik focused entirely on escape.
With a guttural scream of effort, he magnetically tore the submarine's hull wide open, peeling the thick steel back to create an exit.
Ernst prepared to pursue, but a glance back at his father's body made him hesitate.
As Erik vaulted through the breach, he sensed a massive steel plate hurtling toward his back.
Desperate, he turned and threw his hands out, trying to arrest its momentum.
He managed to slow it down, but his powers were stretched to their absolute limit. The plate slammed into him, propelling him out of the submarine in a spectacular shower of sparks and sand.
His violent ejection drew the immediate attention of the mutants battling outside, Azazel, Havok, Beast, Banshee, and Angel all stopped to watch Erik hit the beach.
While the X-Men stared in confusion at Erik's abrupt exit, Ernst stepped out of the jagged hole in the submarine.
He carried Shaw's lifeless body effortlessly in his arms. The somber, terrifyingly calm expression on Ernst's face froze the battlefield.
Azazel, sensing the shift in the air, approached cautiously.
"Boss... Mr. Shaw... is he, ?"
"Back away, Azazel," Ernst commanded, his voice devoid of all emotion.
The teleporter immediately stepped back, stunned into silence.
Ernst began to walk slowly across the beach.
Undeterred by his earlier beating, Erik scrambled to his feet. He reached out with both hands, ripping tons of steel paneling from the submarine's hull.
He crushed it together into a massive, condensed ball of iron weighing over ten tons, and brought it crashing down from the sky directly toward Ernst.
Ernst didn't even break his stride. He simply raised his free hand, caught the ten-ton sphere of condensed metal effortlessly, and casually tossed it aside like a crumpled piece of paper.
The earth shook as it hit the sand.
As the danger became apparent, Havok and Beast broke off from their fights and rushed to intervene.
Havok unleashed a blinding red wave of concentric plasma. Ernst simply walked through it, absorbing the devastating energy without a flinch.
Beast leaped high into the air, roaring, his claws extended for a lethal strike. Ernst didn't even look at him.
He merely lifted his foot and delivered a casual but devastating front kick to Beast's stomach.
The blue mutant was launched backward like a rocket, skipping across the beach and carving a deep ravine in the sand before coming to a halt dozens of meters away.
The battlefield fell dead silent. The once-cohesive X-Men realized they were no longer fighting a man.
They were facing a god.
-------------
Author's Note:
Do you want to read 25+ Chapters ahead right now?
Stop waiting. Come over to the dark side. We have cookies, advanced chapters, and very, very detailed 'plot.'
patreon.com/
Dark_sym