I sat across from the legends—Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsher—flesh and bone of the peaceful mutant cause, playing a slow game of chess like time owed them something.
They didn't look up.
Xavier's hands moved with a kind of practiced serenity, fingertips brushing the bishop forward. Magneto's response was deliberate—he picked up a pawn with careful precision, forking a knight and a pawn, eyes flickering to me just once. Not a greeting. Just acknowledgment. Dismissal, more like.
No words. Just two old titans playing power games on a wooden board.
I slouched in my chair, unimpressed. Fury pulled this same act back at our interrogation, using silence and subtle gestures like weapons. I didn't care then, and I sure as hell didn't now.
These two had more discipline, sure. They had codes. Fury had results. There's a difference.
Lucky for me. I was a master at breaking power plays like this.
I stood up. No reaction, at first. Magneto's hand paused just slightly, pawn hovering over the board. Then he set it down like he hadn't noticed me move.
But I could feel it.
The hum.
The static tension of metal responding to thought.
And Xavier… He still looked at the board, but his attention wasn't there. I felt his mind rise into the space above us like a net. Not intrusive. Just present. Watching. Weighing.
I walked the room.
Stone walls, high-arched ceilings. Cathedral-like. The air smelled of old marble and discipline. Paintings lined the space—portraits, all mutants. Some iconic. Some forgotten. No humans, of course. Magneto wouldn't defile his sanctuary with reminders of a race he considered beneath him.
I stopped at one portrait.
I didn't need a label. Everyone knew that face. That smirk. That stare full of contradictions.
The traitor. The martyr.
The question mark.
Her image radiated off the canvas like a ghost that refused to move on. She smiled like she knew things no one else did—and maybe she did.
I stood there a beat too long.
Behind me, I felt the shift. Not in the air, but in intention. A thread pulled taut.
The chess pieces vibrated faintly, humming like a wasp's wings near my throat.
I could hear Magneto grinding his teeth. His rage was precise. Focused. The kind that could tear a jet in half—or cut a man's jugular with a loose screw.
Even Xavier's game face slipped. The game on the board sat forgotten.
I reached out and brushed her painting with my fingers.
"She was beautiful." I said quietly. "Too unique for this twisted world. So unique that it killed her. A cursed beauty who was supposed to be salvation… and instead became the spark that lit the funeral pyre."
The pieces tightened. I could feel them now—chess pieces molded into spears floating around my neck, waiting for Erik's will.
"She had a choice." Xavier said, his voice flat and cold. "And she chose a path none of us could walk with her."
"She had hope." I replied, still staring at the painting. "And hope, in your world, is dangerous."
Magneto's voice cracked through the space like a blade. "You know far too much for a guest."
I turned slowly, meeting his glare. "Please don't act like Fury hasn't told you yet. Even if he didn't, don't think I wouldn't notice the surprise Forge left in the base. An information transmitter. And if my guess is right, you already knew I raided the base before even Fury, didn't you professor?"
Xavier's hand clenched over a rook.
"Does it matter?" I asked. "Does it matter if I know your stories? Your failures? Does it matter if I know how many mutants Mystique saved—and how many she killed? Does it matter if I know she died hopeful? Hopeful that both or at least one of them would come to her aide? Would it matter if I knew that, in the end, you two abandoned her?"
"Enough." Magneto growled. "You have no right to speak her name."
"Oh, I have every right." I said calmly. "Because I'm not here pretending her death wasn't convenient. I'm not sitting in a stone fortress playing chess while the world she tried to save tears itself apart. With a little help from the one she cared about."
The shards pushed closer, brushing my skin.
"I'm here because unlike both of you—I don't have the luxury of pretending."
"Erik, stand down." Xavier said, eyes now locked on me. "Mr. Ranger is trying to provoke us. Don't give him what he wants."
I held Magneto's gaze. He was coiled, metal and muscle tensed like a spring. I wasn't sure if he'd back off or not. But I didn't flinch.
Eventually, the spears pulled back. They clinked together mid-air, then went back to their prior form and landed on the chess board just as before.
I looked down at them, then back at the portrait.
"She didn't die because she was weak." I said. "She died because she believed mutants could still be better. She died believing that somewhere between Xavier's dream of peace and Magneto's war, there was a third option. But nobody ever listened."
I added. "You all talk about peace and evolution—but the truth is, you're both too used to being right. That's what killed her."
Silence.
"Professor, can we move on to the part where you explain why you called for me?" I spoke tired of all the bullshit that was happening to me. "I don't wish to open any more wounds that is unless you want me to."
"I want you to ensure that most of the mutants survive the war."
The words landed like a punchline to a joke no one wanted to hear.
I stared at them—two of the most powerful mutants alive—sitting there like gods on break, asking favors from the guy they'd barely tolerated yesterday.
I let the silence breathe for a beat, then chuckled. Couldn't help it. Power really is the answer for all in this universe.
"You've got to be kidding me."
Magneto's brow twitched, but he said nothing.
Xavier just looked at me with that same heavy, father-knows-best expression he always wore. The kind that made you want to punch a wall.
"Let me get this straight." I said, stepping forward. "You want me—the outsider, the one your people spit at in the halls, the one half your Silent Council wants strung up, the one you let your people kill—to play savior now? To protect the same mutants who'd happily burn me alive if the lights flickered too long?"
My voice stayed level, but the anger was bubbling under it.
"You think I'm gonna babysit your future just because you're finally realizing your past and actions are catching up with you?"
Xavier remained silent, watching. Waiting. Always waiting.
I shook my head, laughing quietly. "Unbelievable. You think you could play on my conscience? After you let the fight happen? After I got threatened for defending myself. You two old gods built an empire on moral high ground, and now you want me to clean up the fallout when it is close to crumbling?"
I took a slow breath, then pointed at the chessboard.
"Maybe you should focus on finishing your game. Looks like the only war you two know how to fight anymore is Chess and that too at 800 elo."
I turned on my heel. But before I left I dug a hole for our Captain beloved and the mutants.
"Captain America will help you." I said over my shoulder. "He always does. He's good at that whole 'hope' and 'help' thing. I am not."
I didn't wait for a reply. I was done listening to requests that came with zero accountability.
Out in the hallway, Logan was waiting, leaning against the stone frame like he'd been listening the whole time. Which, of course, he had.
He tossed me a beer without a word.
I caught it, popped it open, and took a long sip. Cold. Sharp. Just what I needed.
Logan didn't look at me when he spoke. "I'm not gonna ask you to help."
"Good." I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
"But I am gonna ask you for one thing."
He turned, finally meeting my eyes. No judgment. Just that tired look of someone who's seen too much blood, too many graves.
"Don't kill other mutants." he said. "Not unless you've got a damn good reason."
I held his gaze. The hallway was quiet, the kind of quiet that usually comes right before something explodes.
"Logan." I said, nodding. "I won't kill any mutants without a good enough reason."
I raised the beer slightly. "Call it repayment—for this and all the beer, and for not treating me like a mutant killer the second I walked in."
He gave a faint grunt that might've been approval.
"But let's be clear." I added, stepping beside him. "I'm not putting on a cape. I won't be saving anyone just to feel good about it. If someone's got it coming, I'm not stepping in. I'll look the other way. And if they come after me then gloves off."
Logan took a sip of his own beer, then nodded once.
"Good enough for me, bub."
We stood there for a minute, side by side, two men too tired to fake anything, drinking beer.
The war was coming.
But for now, we drank in the quiet before the fire came.
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Power stones. Power stones. Gimme. Give it to me. My precious. My preciousssss. My preciousssssssssss. Gimme. Gimme.
Well, Msytique is dead cause frankly cause reasons and even weak she is a wildcard and I have no idea on how to make use of her. Too little use and it wouldn't justify her existence and too much use would over inflate her value.