Magneto's grand design was a terrifying, cold-blooded gamble on the darkest aspects of human nature. He was betting the lives of sixteen million mutants on a single, cynical premise: that humanity would inevitably succumb to its own bigotry. He knew a radical, anti-mutant political faction would eventually seize enough geopolitical power to formally declare war on Genosha.
And the second the first missile struck his artificial island, Magneto would be handed the ultimate, unshakeable justification to unify every mutant on the planet into a singular, devastating military force.
"I have absolutely no intention of waging a proactive war against the globe," Magneto said softly, his heavy cape brushing the metal floorboards as they walked. "I recognize that not every human desires our extinction. My strategy is entirely defensive. It will be more than enough to simply show those who refuse to live in harmony with us exactly what happens when they cross the line."
Magneto believed his stance was measured. Moderate, even.
Logan, having spent decades bleeding for Charles Xavier's dream of peaceful coexistence, severely disagreed. But he kept his mouth shut. There was no tactical benefit to debating a hypothetical war that hadn't started yet. He would bring the intelligence back to the Blackbird and let Cyclops figure out the geopolitical nightmare.
"Let's stick to the mission parameters, Erik," Logan grunted, stopping in the center of the subterranean corridor. "Where is Essex's gene-editing machine?"
"It is right here," Magneto replied smoothly. "It has never left my sight."
Magneto raised his right hand. He didn't gesture toward a door. He simply flexed his fingers toward a solid, featureless wall of reinforced iron.
The metal shrieked. The thick iron liquefied, parting like a heavy theatrical curtain to reveal a massive, sterile laboratory occupying well over a thousand square feet. The air inside tasted distinctly of ozone and heavy medical antiseptics. In the center of the room sat a sprawling, intricate network of chrome machinery and pulsing fiber optics, all funneling into five primary surgical hibernation pods.
"The entire splicing procedure requires four to six hours," Magneto explained, looking at the monolithic device. "It can simultaneously isolate and modify the X-gene in up to five subjects. If the goal is simply surgical extraction of a specific genetic marker, the process is significantly faster."
Magneto frowned slightly, a rare flash of regret crossing his aristocratic features. He had originally seized the machine to accelerate his own eugenics program, hoping to safely filter out debilitating mutations from the Genoshan gene pool. Unfortunately, the device was a functional enigma. Even with Genosha's vast resources and brilliant minds, they couldn't reverse-engineer it. It was the only functional precision gene-editor left on Earth. If it broke, it could never be rebuilt.
"As you can see, Logan," Magneto said, stepping back from the threshold. "The device is absolutely secure. No living organism can enter this vault unless I personally escort them down here."
Logan sniffed the sterile air. He didn't smell anything out of the ordinary, but his paranoia ran deep. "Yeah? What happens if Essex already got his hands on your DNA? What if he clones himself a body with your specific magnetic signature to bypass the locks?"
"You and Spider-Man destroyed his primary laboratory in Madripoor," Magneto countered dryly. "Without this exact machine, Essex lacks the microscopic precision required to genetically mark a clone with my specific abilities. Furthermore..." Magneto's eyes glinted with cold amusement. "...I do not rely on simple biometric scanners. I am attuned to the electromagnetic field of this entire island. I can actively detect the displacement of a single, localized iron atom inside that vault."
Logan let out a low, vibrating grunt. He couldn't argue with the physics of a god.
Magneto lowered his hand. The liquid iron rushed back into place, sealing the vault perfectly without a single visible seam. They turned and walked back toward the surface, leaving the secrets of the machine buried deep in the bedrock.
The vault fell into absolute, suffocating darkness.
Ten seconds passed.
A microscopic, entirely silent spark of blue bio-electricity flared near the base of the primary surgical console.
The air pressure in the room violently shifted. With a sharp rush of displaced oxygen, two microscopic specks rapidly expanded, snapping back to full, human proportions in the blink of an eye.
Max Dillon stumbled forward, clutching his stomach. He gasped for breath, his pupils dilating wildly as his brain struggled to process the sudden, nauseating shift in physical mass.
Beside him, Miss Sinister—the flawless, crimson-eyed female clone of Nathaniel Essex—adjusted the cuffs of her blood-red evening gown. She calmly holstered a specialized, compact energy pistol strapped to her thigh.
"Thank you, Erik," Miss Sinister smiled, her voice dripping with venomous amusement as she looked at the sealed iron wall. "You always were so terribly accommodating."
She patted the custom-built pistol. "Hank Pym truly is a pioneer. Without his proprietary sub-atomic particles, bypassing a solid, localized magnetic lock would have been a logistical nightmare. We owe Magneto a debt of gratitude for personally opening the door for us to slip inside."
Max braced his hands on his knees, his veins pulsing with faint, jagged blue light. "That is... a seriously weird trip," he wheezed, looking at the Pym Particle gun. He glanced up at Miss Sinister. "I don't get it, though. How did your people manage to steal top-tier shrinking tech from the Avengers?"
"The Avengers?" Miss Sinister scoffed, stepping toward the main console. "Do not be absurd. Tony Stark may be an arrogant, insufferable brat, and Hank Pym is a dangerously naive dreamer, but their respective servers are digital fortresses. Infiltrating Avengers Tower requires an unacceptable expenditure of resources."
She tapped a sequence into the gene-editor's keyboard. The machine hummed to life, bathing the dark vault in a sterile white glow.
"But S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Miss Sinister laughed softly. "S.H.I.E.L.D strike team Thunderbolt have a member name Goliath AKA Bill Foster. He utilizes a synthesized variant of Pym Particles. And for my organization, S.H.I.E.L.D. is essentially a public restroom. We stroll through the front door, relieve ourselves of whatever classified technology we require, and leave the mess for Nick Fury to clean up."
Miss Sinister turned to Max, her crimson eyes locking onto his.
"Enough chatter. Retrieve your specimen and prepare for surgery," she ordered. "As you overheard the good Führer explain, the full integration splice requires four to six hours."
Max eagerly unzipped his heavy rubber duffel bag. He pulled out the thick, specialized containment tube holding the stolen Oscorp electric eel. The creature was barely alive, twitching weakly against the glass.
"As per our arrangement," Miss Sinister said, sliding the eel's containment tube into the secondary processing chamber. "I will meticulously edit your X-gene. I will splice this creature's biological generation protocols directly into your nervous system. You will be able to infinitely absorb, generate, and store electrical energy without burning out your own heart. In exchange... once you wake up, you will unleash absolute havoc upon Genosha. You will provide the distraction I require to extract this machine."
"It's a deal," Max grinned, a spark leaping between his front teeth.
He stripped off his heavy electrician's jumpsuit, shivering slightly in the cold air, and climbed into the central glass hibernation pod. He lay back against the padded sensors. "Uh... are you absolutely sure Magneto won't sense us down here?"
"He relies entirely on his command over metal," Miss Sinister said dismissively, attaching a series of biometric leads to Max's chest. "We are not moving the architecture. Everything in this room remains structurally identical to when he sealed the door. He won't feel a thing."
She pressed the primary activation switch. The heavy glass lid of the surgical pod hissed shut, sealing Max inside.
"Enjoy your final hours as a baseline mutant, Mr. Dillon," Miss Sinister whispered, her reflection catching in the glass. "When you wake up, your capacity for destruction will be rivaled only by the Omega-levels."
Up on the surface, the sun was beginning to set over the Atlantic, painting the Genoshan skyline in brilliant shades of orange and violet.
Peter Parker walked with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He was starting to severely doubt his own tactical theories. It was one of the primary investigative angles he had pitched to the Avengers, and he still believed the logic was sound, but he had spent the entire afternoon sweeping Port Hammer alongside Wanda Maximoff. He hadn't seen a single trace of Max Dillon.
There were no localized brownouts. No sudden electrical fires. Genosha seemed entirely, annoyingly peaceful.
They paused near a bustling pedestrian intersection. A young mutant girl, no older than ten, sat on the edge of a planter box. She was holding her hands out, giggling as she wove thin, crackling threads of pure blue lightning between her fingers. She shaped the electricity into a glowing, galloping horse. She wasn't busking for money. She wasn't preparing to attack anyone. She was simply playing. A small crowd of passersby stopped to clap and offer warm smiles.
It was a stark, almost poetic contrast to Max Dillon. A child playing with harmless bio-electricity in the sunlight, while a grown man tore the world apart chasing a lethal high.
Maybe I could manifest a few bio-electric sparks, Peter thought, rubbing his thumb against his index finger. Just to blend in. Put on a little light show.
[No,] Venom immediately shut the idea down. [If we use our powers, we flag our biometric signature. The goal is to remain invisible. Do not be an idiot.]
Fine, fine. Just a thought V, Peter conceded.
He looked up as Wanda approached through the crowd. She had briefly stepped away to check the box office at the central plaza auditorium.
"I have excellent news," Wanda smiled, holding up two thick, glossy, holographic tickets. "I secured passes for Alison Blaire's concert tonight."
Peter blinked, looking at the tickets. "Wait, I thought everything here was provided by the state. You guys actually have to buy tickets for a concert?"
"The auditorium has a strict maximum fire capacity," Wanda explained, handing one of the tickets to Peter. "And technically, you only require a reserved ticket if you want access to the inner ocular-ring. Alison's mutation converts sound into solid light constructs. If you sit too far back, you can hear the music, but you can't physically see the performance."
"Oh, that makes sense," Peter nodded, examining the glowing barcode on the ticket. "Well, thank you, Wanda. I imagine these must have been incredibly hard to get on such short notice."
Wanda laughed softly, shaking her head.
"It really isn't difficult to bypass a sold-out box office line," Wanda smirked, glancing back toward the plaza. "Not when you send Pietro to snatch them before the clerk even realizes the printer has finished running."