(Eric)
The thing about successfully robbing a criminal organization is that you can't exactly celebrate publicly.
No victory party. No bragging to classmates. No posting about it on social media (not that I had social media, but the point stood). Just me and Damien, sitting in the orphanage basement three days after the heist, surrounded by scavenged electronics and trying to look innocent.
"It's been seventy-two hours," Damien said, scrolling through news sites on his laptop. "Still no mention of us specifically. Just 'unknown metahuman' and 'currently under investigation.'"
"Good." I was working on a broken toaster I'd pulled from the dump, using my powers to straighten bent coils and replace corroded contacts. It was mindless work, but it kept my control sharp. "What about the Royal Flush Gang?"
"Radio silence. Either they're planning something, or they're too embarrassed to admit they got robbed by a teenager." He clicked to another tab. "Oh, but check this out—three different jewelry stores got hit last night. Professional jobs, high-end merchandise. That's definitely them trying to recoup losses."
I set down the toaster, now working perfectly. "So we hurt them enough that they're scrambling for money. That's either really good or really bad for us."
"I'm going with really bad. Desperate criminals tend to make rash decisions."
He had a point. I'd been laying low for three days—no dump visits, no power practice beyond small exercises in my room. The news had mentioned a metahuman with magnetic abilities, which meant someone had talked. Probably one of the guards I'd left pinned to walls.
I needed to be careful. Central City was the Flash's territory, and while my meta-knowledge said he was usually busy with his own rogues, a new metahuman would definitely attract attention.
"We need to change tactics," I said, pulling out my notebook. "The heist model works, but it's too visible. Every time we hit someone, we risk exposure."
"So what's the alternative?"
"Diversification." I flipped to a page where I'd been sketching ideas. "We keep doing the dump runs—fixing appliances, selling scrap. It's steady income and it doesn't attract attention. But we also start building infrastructure."
Damien looked up. "What kind of infrastructure?"
"The kind that lets us operate without depending on luck." I tapped my pen against the notebook. "We need a base. Not here, somewhere secure. We need better equipment. We need information networks. We need to be smart about this instead of just winging it."
"We made forty-two thousand dollars by winging it."
"And we almost got caught five times. I'll take preparation over luck any day."
He closed his laptop, giving me his full attention. "Okay. So what's the plan?"
I'd been thinking about this for three days straight. The heist had proven I could use my powers in combat, but it had also shown me how unprepared I was. Nine guys shouldn't have been a challenge for someone with Magneto's abilities, but I'd struggled because I was still learning, still improvising.
That needed to change.
"First priority," I said, "we find a real base of operations. Somewhere we can set up equipment, store resources, work without being interrupted. I've been thinking about the old subway tunnels."
"The ones they closed down in the 80s?"
"Exactly. They're abandoned, city's forgotten about them, and there's enough metal infrastructure down there that I can work with it easily." I pulled out a map I'd printed from the library. "This section here, near the industrial district. Multiple access points, no regular patrols, far enough from active lines that nobody goes there."
Damien studied the map. "That's... actually not a bad idea. We'd need to clean it out, set up power somehow—"
"I can handle power." Magneto's memories included extensive experience with electromagnetic generation. "Tap into existing lines, create a secondary circuit that won't show on the grid. It'll take some work, but it's doable."
"And then what? We just live in a subway tunnel?"
"No, we use it as a workshop. Somewhere to build equipment, practice powers, store anything we can't keep at the orphanage." I looked at him seriously. "Damien, if we're going to do this—really do this—we need to be professional. The heist was step one. Now we build the foundation for something bigger."
He was quiet for a moment, processing. Then: "You're talking about going full supervillain, aren't you?"
"I prefer 'independent operator.'"
"That's just supervillain with better PR."
"Exactly." I grinned. "Look, in six months, things are going to start happening in this city. Big things. Heroes, villains, world-ending threats. I want to be positioned so that when it all kicks off, we're players instead of bystanders."
"And building a secret base in an abandoned subway tunnel is step one of that master plan."
"Step three, technically. Step one was getting powers. Step two was getting money. Step three is infrastructure."
Damien shook his head, but he was smiling. "You're insane. But okay. When do we check out these tunnels?"
"Tonight. After everyone's asleep." I stood, stretching. The toaster hummed quietly on the workbench, fully functional. "In the meantime, I need to practice. I've been cooped up for three days and I'm getting restless."
"Practice where? You can't go back to the dump, someone might recognize you."
I'd thought about that. "There's a junkyard on the east side. Miller's Auto Salvage. They're closed on Sundays and the security is basically nonexistent. I scouted it yesterday."
"Of course you did."
"Preparation, remember?" I grabbed my hoodie. "You coming?"
"To watch you throw car parts around magnetically? Yeah, I'm coming. Someone needs to keep you from doing anything stupid."
"I never do anything stupid."
"You robbed the Royal Flush Gang three days ago."
"That was calculated risk, totally different."
We headed out through the fire escape, two teenagers with a backpack full of tools and absolutely no supervision. Sister Alice was busy with the younger kids, and nobody tracked our movements that carefully anyway.
The freedom was intoxicating.
Miller's Auto Salvage was a graveyard of crushed cars and rusted machinery, spread across two acres of cracked concrete and weeds. The fence had a gate with a chain that yielded to my magnetic manipulation in about three seconds.
"This is perfect," I said, looking around at mountains of scrap metal. "It's like the dump, but with more structural integrity."
Damien set up his laptop on the hood of a relatively intact car. "I'll keep watch. Try not to bring the whole place down on us."
I walked into the maze of scrap, feeling the metal around me like a second skin. Car frames, engine blocks, transmission systems, steel beams, aluminum panels. Hundreds of tons of material, all responsive to my power.
Time to push some limits.
I started with the basics—lifting individual car doors, rotating them in the air, setting them down gently. My control had improved over the past three weeks. What had been difficult before now felt natural.
Then I moved to heavier objects. An entire engine block, easily five hundred pounds. I lifted it twenty feet in the air and held it there, feeling the strain but managing it.
Six hundred pounds. Seven hundred. At eight hundred, I started getting a headache.
I set the engine block down carefully and made a note: current comfortable weight limit was around six hundred pounds. Maximum was probably close to a thousand, but sustained lifting at that weight would exhaust me quickly.
Good to know. Magneto could lift aircraft carriers. I could lift a motorcycle. Progress, but I had a long way to go.
Next test: range. I walked to the far end of the salvage yard and focused on a car door I'd marked earlier. It was about a hundred and fifty feet away—right at the edge of my detection range.
I reached out and pulled.
The door trembled. Scraped an inch. Two inches.
At a hundred and seventy feet, I lost my grip entirely.
So my range had improved, but not by much. Maybe ten feet over the past three weeks. At this rate, it would take years to match Magneto's planetary-scale sensing.
I needed to accelerate my growth somehow.
I pulled out my notebook and flipped to a page I'd been working on: Theoretical Power Enhancement Methods
Option 1: Practice (current method, slow but steady) Option 2: Study electromagnetic theory (in progress, helps with control) Option 3: Exposure to strong magnetic fields (risky, might help or might kill me) Option 4: Find and study rare magnetic materials (expensive, requires resources) Option 5: ??? (figure this out later)
I tapped the pen against Option 4. Rare magnetic materials. Magneto had worked with all kinds of exotic metals over the years—adamantium, vibranium, nth metal. Each one had unique properties that could enhance or refine his abilities.
But where would I find something like that in Central City?
"Eric!" Damien's voice, sharp with warning. "Someone's coming!"
I froze, reaching out with my magnetic sense. Two people, both carrying metal—keys, phones, probably tools. They were still a block away but heading this direction.
"Security?" I called quietly.
"Don't think so. Looks like... oh shit, that's a police cruiser."
Damn it.
I quickly looked around. The salvage yard was a mess from my practice—car parts rearranged, an engine block sitting in the middle of a clear space, obvious signs of disturbance.
No time to fix it all. I grabbed the engine block and hurled it magnetically into a pile of scrap where it wouldn't be obviously out of place, then sprinted back toward Damien.
"Out the back?" he asked, already packing his laptop.
"Out the back."
We ran through the maze of crushed cars, heading for the rear fence. Behind us, I heard the cruiser pull up, doors opening, voices calling out to check the property.
I hit the fence and magnetically popped the lock on the back gate. We slipped through into an alley, then slowed to a casual walk as we emerged onto a residential street.
Two blocks away, we stopped to catch our breath.
"That was close," Damien gasped.
"Too close." I looked back toward the salvage yard. "Someone must have seen us go in. Or maybe they've been watching the place after the dump incidents."
"You think the cops are connecting the dots?"
"Maybe. Or maybe it's just bad luck." I pulled out my phone—the burner I'd bought with heist money—and checked the time. 4 PM. We'd been at the salvage yard for two hours. "Either way, we need to be more careful. No more public practice sessions."
"Hence the secret subway base."
"Hence the secret subway base."
We took the long way back to the orphanage, keeping to busy streets where we'd blend in. I spent the walk thinking about what had just happened.
Three days after the heist and I was already getting sloppy. Getting too confident. Magneto's memories whispered warnings about hubris, about underestimating opponents.
I needed to be smarter than this.
Back at the orphanage, we had three hours before our planned tunnel expedition. I spent it in my room, actually doing homework for once. Sister Alice had been giving me concerned looks lately—not suspicious, just worried that I was withdrawing. Needed to maintain appearances.
At 10 PM, I heard a soft knock. Three taps, pause, two taps. Our signal.
I opened the door to find Damien with a backpack full of supplies. "Ready for some urban exploration?"
"Let's go be criminals in a subway tunnel."
"That's the spirit."
The entrance to the old subway system was exactly where the maps said it would be: a rusted maintenance door in an alley behind a closed textile factory. The lock had long since corroded into uselessness, and my magnetic manipulation made short work of what remained.
The door opened with a groan of protesting metal.
Beyond was darkness and the smell of stale air.
"This is either going to be perfect or full of rats," Damien said, clicking on a flashlight.
"Could be both."
We descended a metal staircase into the earth. My magnetic sense told me there was extensive metalwork down here—support beams, old rails, junction boxes. The city had built these tunnels in the 1940s as part of an expansion that never finished. They'd been abandoned for forty years.
Perfect.
At the bottom of the stairs, the tunnel opened into a wider space. Damien's flashlight revealed old tile work, rusted railings, and yes, evidence of rats.
"Okay," I said, looking around. "It's not pretty, but it's workable."
"Define workable."
I walked to the center of the space and closed my eyes, reaching out with my senses. Metal everywhere—the rails, the support structure, electrical conduits that hadn't carried power in decades. And more importantly, no one around for at least two hundred feet in any direction.
Private. Secure. Hidden.
"This," I said, opening my eyes, "is perfect."
I reached out to the old electrical junction boxes on the wall. Inside I could sense the wiring, the connections, the flow of the city's power grid running through larger cables nearby. It would be tricky, but I could tap into that. Create a branch circuit that wouldn't show up on any official monitoring.
"Give me a minute," I told Damien.
I focused on the metal conduits, following them back to the main power lines. Magneto's knowledge of electromagnetic systems kicked in—I could sense the voltage, the current, the way electricity flowed through conductive materials.
Carefully, very carefully, I created a magnetic bridge between the main line and the old junction box. The connection snapped into place, and suddenly there was power flowing into our tunnel.
The old fluorescent lights flickered. Most were dead, but three of them buzzed to life, casting harsh white light across the space.
"Holy shit," Damien breathed. "You just hot-wired the entire electrical grid."
"Technically I created an electromagnetic induction bridge between two circuits, but sure, hot-wired works." I was grinning like an idiot. That had been complicated, requiring fine control and theoretical understanding I'd only learned from books. But I'd done it.
The space looked better in the light. It was still dirty, still abandoned, but I could see the potential. The main chamber was maybe thirty feet across, with two smaller tunnel branches leading off to the sides. Plenty of room for a workshop, storage, maybe even a small living area if we needed it.
"We're really doing this," Damien said, setting down his backpack. "We're building a secret base."
"We're building a secret base," I confirmed. "Now we just need to clean it, secure it, and set up equipment."
"And not tell anyone about it."
"Especially not tell anyone about it."
We spent the next two hours exploring, cataloging what we had to work with. The tunnel system was larger than I'd expected—multiple chambers connected by passages, old maintenance rooms still containing rusted tools, even a small office area that must have been for the construction crew.
By the time we left, I had a mental map of the entire space and a growing list of what we needed to make this work.
Base Construction Requirements:
Cleaning supplies (lots)
Furniture (workbenches, chairs, storage)
Better lighting (current setup is minimal)
Ventilation (it's stuffy down here)
Security measures (locks, alarms, etc.)
Workshop equipment (tools, materials)
Computer setup (Damien's domain)
Living supplies (just in case)
The total cost would eat through most of our remaining heist money, but it would be worth it. A secure base meant we could operate more freely, take bigger risks, plan longer-term.
We emerged from the tunnel at midnight, carefully securing the entrance behind us.
"You know what's crazy?" Damien said as we walked back toward the orphanage. "Three weeks ago I was just a bored kid in a new city. Now I'm building a secret base with a metahuman who robbed a criminal gang."
"Is that a complaint?"
"Hell no. This is the most interesting my life has ever been." He grinned. "So what's next? After we set up the base?"
I thought about the plot timeline. Six months until Young Justice formed. Five and a half, now. I needed to be stronger, better equipped, more knowledgeable about the key players.
"Next," I said, "we start gathering intelligence. I want to know everything about this city—who's operating where, what they're doing, where their resources are. We build a database of information."
"You want to spy on everyone."
"I want to be informed about everyone. There's a difference."
"That's the same thing with—"
"With better PR, I know." I smiled. "But information is power, Damien. The more we know, the better positioned we are when things start happening."
"Things. You keep saying that. What things?"
I couldn't tell him about my meta-knowledge, not fully. He'd think I was insane. But I could give him enough to understand.
"This is Central City," I said. "Home of the Flash. One of the biggest hero-villain battlegrounds on the planet. You really think it's going to stay quiet? There are things coming—big things. And when they arrive, I want us to be ready."
He processed that. "You're talking about something specific, aren't you? Something you know is coming."
"Call it intuition."
"You're a terrible liar."
"Fine. Let's say I have... insights... into how things work in this world. Patterns I've noticed, connections I've made. And those insights tell me that the next six months are going to be important."
It was as close to the truth as I could give him.
Damien was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Okay. I trust you. If you say something's coming, I believe you. So we prepare."
"We prepare," I agreed.
The next week passed in a blur of activity.
Mornings, I maintained my normal routine—school, homework, acting like a regular teenager. Sister Alice had been pleased to see me "settling in better," which made the guilt twist a little tighter. But I pushed it down. I was doing good things with the money. The orphanage was funded. I was helping Damien have purpose. The ends justified the means.
That's what I told myself, anyway.
Afternoons and evenings, we worked on the base. Damien and I made trips to hardware stores, thrift shops, and salvage yards, buying and scrounging everything we needed. We spread the purchases across multiple stores to avoid suspicion, paying cash for everything.
The tunnel started to transform.
I cleaned out forty years of accumulated dirt and debris, using my magnetic powers to sort through metal scrap and organize it into useful categories. Damien set up a computer station in the main chamber, running cables to the junction boxes and creating a secure network that couldn't be traced.
We installed better lighting. Set up workbenches. Created a storage system for materials and tools. Built a small living area with a cot and basic supplies—just in case one of us needed to hide or stay overnight.
By day seven, we had something that actually looked like a functional workspace.
I stood in the center of the main chamber, looking at what we'd built, and felt a surge of pride. This was mine. Not the orphanage's, not the city's, not anyone else's. A space where I could work, experiment, plan without oversight or judgment.
"It's not much," Damien said, coming to stand beside me, "but it's home. Sort of."
"It's exactly what we need," I said. "Now we can actually start working on the important stuff."
I walked over to one of the workbenches, where I'd laid out materials I'd been gathering. Copper wire. Steel plates. Aluminum rods. Various electronic components salvaged from the dump and purchased from electronics stores.
"What are you building?" Damien asked.
"Version 1.0 of my equipment." I picked up a steel plate, feeling its composition through my powers. "The mask I used for the heist was just cloth. I need something better—something that can protect me and maybe enhance my abilities."
"You're making a helmet."
"Eventually. Right now I'm just experimenting with magnetic field generation." I set the plate down and picked up a coil of copper wire. "If I can create devices that amplify or focus magnetic fields, it'll extend my effective range and power."
Damien pulled out his laptop. "I've been researching electromagnetic theory. Found some interesting papers on magnetic field manipulation and resonance frequencies. Want me to send them to you?"
"Yes. All of it. I need to understand the science better, not just rely on Magneto's muscle memory."
We fell into a comfortable working rhythm. Damien researched and provided technical information. I experimented with materials, testing how different metals responded to my manipulation, looking for combinations that might enhance my abilities.
Hours passed. The tunnel was quiet except for the hum of electricity and our occasional conversation.
Around 9 PM, I successfully created a small magnetic field generator—a coil of wire wrapped around an iron core that I could activate with my powers. It wasn't much, barely extending my range by five feet, but it was proof of concept.
I could build devices that enhanced my abilities.
"That's incredible," Damien said, watching the field generator pulse with invisible force. "You basically just created a power amplifier."
"A very weak power amplifier," I corrected. "But yes, the principle works. With better materials and more refined design, I could create something actually useful."
"What would 'better materials' look like?"
I thought about that. "Superconductors would be ideal. Zero resistance, maximum field generation. But those require serious cooling, which makes them impractical for portable equipment."
"What about exotic materials? Like, metahuman-adjacent stuff?"
"That would be even better, but where am I going to find something like that in Central City?" I set down the field generator. "It's not like I can just walk into a store and buy nth metal or promethium."
"No, but..." Damien pulled up something on his laptop. "I've been monitoring police scanners and news feeds. There was a report two weeks ago about a robbery at a STAR Labs transport truck. Thieves got away with some kind of experimental materials."
I leaned over to look at the screen. "STAR Labs? What were they transporting?"
"Report doesn't say specifically, but it mentions 'high-value research materials' and 'potential metahuman applications.'" He looked up at me. "Those materials are somewhere in this city. Probably being sold on the black market."
My mind started racing. STAR Labs did cutting-edge research with alien technology, metahuman biology, and advanced materials. If there were experimental materials floating around the criminal underworld...
"We need to find whoever stole that shipment," I said.
"And then what?"
"And then we acquire those materials for our own research purposes."
Damien raised an eyebrow. "By 'acquire' you mean 'steal.'"
"I mean 'redistribute to parties who will actually use them productively.'" I grinned. "Come on, whoever has them now is probably just going to sell them to the highest bidder. We'd actually study them, learn from them, maybe even put them to good use."
"You're rationalizing."
"I'm being pragmatic."
"That's just rationalization with extra steps."
"True." I looked at the screen again, reading the details of the robbery. "But the point stands. If there are exotic materials available, we should try to get them. They could accelerate my development significantly."
Damien saved the article to a research folder. "Okay. So we add this to our intelligence-gathering priorities. Find the stolen STAR Labs materials, figure out who has them, make a plan to acquire them."
"Exactly." I stood, stretching. My back ached from hunching over the workbench. "But carefully this time. No rushing in like we did with the Royal Flush Gang. We plan, we prepare, we execute cleanly."
"Learning from our mistakes. I like it."
"I'm trying." I looked around the base, at everything we'd built in a week. "We're making progress, Damien. Real progress. Another month and we'll have solid operations running."
"And then what?"
It was the same question he kept asking, and I kept giving different variations of the same answer.
"Then we start positioning ourselves for what comes next. Building reputation, making connections, getting strong enough to matter when the big players start moving."
"Still being vague about the specifics."
"Because I don't know all the specifics yet. I just know they're coming."
He accepted that with a nod. We'd built enough trust that he didn't push for details I couldn't give.
We locked up the base and headed back to the orphanage. It was late, after 11 PM, and the streets were mostly empty. Central City at night had a different feel—less frenetic, more watchful. Like the city itself was waiting for something to happen.
I knew the feeling.
Back in my room, I pulled out my notebook and updated my progress log:
Week 4 Progress:
POWERS:
Range: 175 feet detection, 110 feet control (improved)
Weight: 700 lbs comfortable, ~1000 lbs maximum (improved)
Control: Can now manipulate 6 objects simultaneously (improved)
New: Successfully created magnetic field generator prototype
RESOURCES:
Money: $15,200 remaining (down from $21,150)
Base: Fully functional, secure, equipped
Partnership: Damien fully committed and contributing
Equipment: Basic workshop tools, materials for experiments
INTELLIGENCE:
Royal Flush Gang: Still searching for me, no leads
STAR Labs theft: Potential source of exotic materials
Police: May be connecting metahuman incidents
Flash: No direct contact, hopefully stays that way
GOALS (Next 30 Days):
Continue power training (daily exercises)
Build enhanced equipment (magnetic amplifiers)
Locate and acquire STAR Labs materials
Gather intelligence on major players
Maintain cover identity at orphanage
I looked at that last item and felt the familiar twist of guilt. Sister Alice thought I was a good person. The other kids thought I was just quiet and withdrawn. Nobody suspected I was building a secret base and planning to steal experimental materials from criminals.
Was I a good person? Magneto's memories suggested that "good" and "bad" were just labels used by the powerful to control the weak. What mattered was strength, purpose, survival.
But I wasn't Magneto. I was Eric Lensherr, fourteen-year-old orphan trying to make sure he mattered in a world full of gods and monsters.
The line between those two identities was getting blurrier every day.
I closed the notebook and lay back on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Outside, Central City hummed with life. Somewhere out there, the Flash was probably stopping a robbery. The Royal Flush Gang was plotting revenge. STAR Labs materials were sitting in some criminal's warehouse.
And I was here, planning my next move, building my foundation, getting ready for the moment when everything would change.
Five months until Young Justice formed.
Five months to become someone they couldn't ignore.
I smiled in the darkness and started planning tomorrow's training regimen.
The journey from "teenager with powers" to "Master of Magnetism" was going to be long.
But I was going to enjoy every step.