Template:Featured Articles/44-2023
 Madin turned as the door opened and was scrambling to their feet as they processed the identity of the man in front of them. It was a small room and their shoulders hit the far wall after only a couple of steps. Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The bed frame was made of metal. There was metal in the door hinges. There was probably metal everywhere. "Please. I'm sorry. Please don't." "Please don't? Please don't what? Free you from this cage they've put you in? I can leave you here, I suppose, but it would be a bit of a waste on a quite successful attack on Charles' mansion. While his X-Men engage your Brotherhood fellows on the South Lawn, they opened up enough of a gap for Mystique and I to enter secretly. Once she disables their security system - a matter of minutes - Zero will open a portal and we'll be gone before the X-Men have a chance to even assess the damage." Madin stared at him in horror. "No." They took a deep breath. "Please don't kill them." "Madin, if I wanted the X-Men dead, I would have done it a dozen times over by now. Misguided, certainly. Weak, without a doubt. Is that worthy of a death sentence?" Magneto paused outside of the cell door. "I must say, you have certainly exceeded my expectations." "I didn't. I didn't fucking come here for you." Madin still hadn't moved. He was lying. He had to be lying. The X-Men were going to die. That hadn't been the plan. "Come now, Madin. Do you honestly think I didn't see every step before you took it? Or I couldn't have prevented it at any time? No." He sighed. "I wanted you to find your way here. To experience their futility first hand. Their hypocrisy. I have no doubt they told you just how much this place was a haven for our kind. That Xavier's way was about peace. And yet..." He took a seat. "And yet." He waved at Madin's cell door. "Tell me. How long did it take before you were told that humans deserved rights over you? How their fear was your problem to fix?" Could they get to the door before he did anything? "They didn't say that exactly. I don't. I. They never said that I have to give my rights over to humans," Madin mumbled. Except Terry had, in the discussion about the community centre. Human bigots were tolerated there and Madin hadn't set foot in the place since. "For all this is a haven, how long before they showed you exactly what they thought about a mutant who didn't immediately fall into line behind their philosophies?" He said, with an arch of his brow. "I gave you the room you needed to find your way here. To see for yourself what we face; our own standing behind the same people who curse and hate us. I wanted you to understand first hand who they are and just why we need you, Madin." "I'm not going back." Everything else had sounded uncertain. This wasn't. "I'm not fucking going back." They should have left months ago. Mystique was taking down the security system and the X-Men were dying and this was their fault. All of it. |
