"Fenris, you need to get there as fast as you can."
"They really, really need your power over there."
As he watched the Professor and Jean drive away, Jean's voice still echoed in his ears. Fenris chuckled to himself and turned toward the Cerebro chamber.
Even though Magneto's side had picked up two powerful mutants, Erik was still Charles's old friend and rival of several decades. For all his extremism and fierce devotion to mutantkind, there was no way Magneto would casually let Charles's students get killed.
Every clash between the X-Men and the Brotherhood looked fierce on the surface, but once it was over, both sides usually just dusted themselves off and left. Aside from their opposing beliefs, they showed enormous restraint whenever they fought.
Otherwise, Scott and the others would never have had the chance to send word back.
In Erik's own words, he still wanted to sit down with Charles someday and peacefully drink tea and play chess.
And on that point, Professor X understood him perfectly well.
Meanwhile, by the time Fenris made his way to the hidden room that housed Cerebro, he happened to find the door already open. A figure was leaning over the circular platform, fiddling with something.
The moment she heard his footsteps, the person froze for an instant, then calmly went back to what she was doing as if nothing had happened.
"Ms. Grey?" Fenris asked cautiously. "What are you doing?"
"Oh, it's you."
Jean Grey straightened up and waved him off impatiently. "Why are you here? Students aren't allowed in here. Leave. Now."
"Ms. Grey, you really don't recognize me?"
Fenris remained unmoved and strolled forward at an unhurried pace.
"You..."
Before Raven could finish, Fenris's figure blurred and vanished.
He was far too fast. Mystique might be a master hand-to-hand fighter, but she had no time to react. In the next instant, a long, well-defined hand had already clamped around her throat.
"Let me see what Ms. Grey is up to."
Fenris smiled as he lifted Mystique into the air. She threw every trick she had at him, but nothing she did could move him in the slightest.
A small bottle filled with an unidentified dark green liquid came into view.
"Ms. Grey, you weren't planning to hurt our Professor, were you?"
Fenris held up the bottle and examined it carefully. After a while, when he still couldn't make sense of it, he tucked it away.
"So you're one of Charles's new students?"
After struggling for a while, Raven realized Fenris was as immovable as a mountain. She gave up entirely.
Her skin rippled, and in moments she reverted to her true appearance.
Blue skin lined with scales, vivid red hair, and golden eyes that gave her an eerie beauty.
"Not exactly a student."
Fenris loosened his grip and let Raven go. "The Professor sent me over, but he told me not to hurt you."
"And yet you were about to hurt him?"
"Hmph."
After the display of strength Fenris had just shown, Raven knew escape was impossible. She simply turned her head aside and sealed her lips, refusing to say a word.
"Whatever."
Fenris knew the woman in front of him was basically the Professor's little sister. He really couldn't justify beating up the sister of the man whose resources he was using.
After thinking it over for a moment, he called Logan.
"Kid, what is it?"
Logan sounded irritable. Getting completely outclassed by Magneto had clearly not been easy for him to swallow.
"How are things on your side?"
"Bad. Rogue got taken. Magneto held a gun to a crowd of civilians and threatened the Professor. Charles had no choice but to let them go." Logan briefly explained what had happened.
"We'll be back soon. Fenris, did you catch the intruder?" This time, it was the Professor speaking.
"Yes, I got caught."
At the side, Raven snatched the communicator right out of Fenris's hand and answered into it openly, pacing around right in front of him with absolutely no sign of someone trapped in enemy territory.
Watching Raven act like she was back in her own home, Fenris could only shrug helplessly.
A short while later, everyone returned, though the atmosphere was noticeably heavy.
The instant Logan saw Mystique, rage surged through him. He crossed the room in two strides, his metal claws snapping out with a sharp sound as he aimed them straight at her throat.
"You're the one who made Rogue leave the school?"
"Huh?!"
Logan's sudden explosion startled everyone. The Professor quickly tried to stop him.
"Logan, Logan!"
"Hmph!"
Logan was already in a foul mood. He let out a cold snort, turned away, and slammed a hand down on the table hard enough to make it boom.
"Professor, Mystique was about to put this into Cerebro."
Fenris chose that moment to take out the small bottle of unknown liquid and toss it to Jean. The Professor had mentioned earlier in the office that Jean was the one who maintained Cerebro.
"This is..."
Jean frowned.
"It's something to make Charles get some proper rest for a while."
Raven explained it directly. "No side effects. Its only purpose is to keep him from interfering with our plan."
"Plan?"
The Professor froze, then immediately pressed further. "Raven, what exactly is Erik trying to do? He's acting recklessly. Do you understand that?"
Earlier, he had learned from Sabretooth that Erik intended to turn all of New York into mutants, but he still did not know the details.
"Charles, stop clinging to your illusions. If we suddenly had tens of millions more of our own people, wouldn't that be a good thing for us?"
Raven stared at Charles in disbelief. "Our people have been dissected, studied, and forced to live under the cold gaze of others for years. Have you not seen any of that?"
"Raven, all this will do is deepen the hatred the remaining billions of ordinary humans have toward mutants. It will make the conflict even more impossible to reconcile!"
Being confronted so directly, Charles rarely let his emotions show, but now his voice rose with unmistakable strain. "If millions of ordinary people become mutants overnight, how many innocent people will die in the chaos caused by that imbalance of power? Have you even thought about that?"
"So what?" Raven shot back without the slightest retreat. "Without sacrifice, where does survival space come from? Are we supposed to wait for other people to hand it to us?"
"You..."
"How can you say something like that?"
Charles had never imagined words that cold would come from the mouth of the sister he had grown up with. For a moment, his throat worked several times, and his chest rose and fell sharply.
"You're too soft!"
Just as the two of them seemed on the verge of breaking into another fierce argument, Ororo suddenly pushed open the door and walked in.
"Professor, Senator Kelly, the one Magneto transformed into a mutant... he's dead."
"His whole body turned to liquid. He died in agony," Ororo added.
The image of Kelly's suffering still lingered vividly in her mind.
"What?"
The room fell silent.
Everyone stared in shock. Even Raven, who had just been speaking with absolute conviction, froze where she stood.
"Wow. So Magneto isn't planning to turn New York into a city of mutants. He's planning to turn it into a city full of dead mutants."
Fenris suddenly spoke up from the side. He looked at Raven, who was still stunned. "Serious question. Is that what Magneto wants?"
"Raven, this is not a joke." The Professor drew in a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. "No matter what, those ordinary people are innocent."
"Tell us when Erik plans to act."
As he spoke, his fingers slowly rose toward his temple. "I did promise I would not casually invade your mind. But when something this serious is at stake, I cannot let you continue down this path."
"..."
Raven stood there in a daze, her lips trembling as she avoided Charles's gaze.
"All right, stop asking. I can probably guess where they are."
As the room sank into silence, a voice suddenly rang out.