"You're not Eric!" Sebastian Shaw shot to his feet, a surge of adrenaline finally breaking his stillness. He remained rooted to the spot, trapped by his own power, but his face was a mask of pure disbelief.
A moment ago, Magneto had caught Azazel's serrated blades with his bare hands. Blades that could slice through space itself. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have been surprising. Magneto's command over electromagnetism meant he could control any metal.
But these were not normal circumstances. Before coming to Utopia, Shaw had absorbed a colossal amount of nuclear energy, turning himself into a walking reactor. The resulting energy field radiating from him was powerful enough to warp the very space around him, nullifying any mutant abilities within his immediate vicinity. It was the core of his plan: disable Magneto's powers and allow Azazel to teleport in for a swift, shocking kill.
It was a perfect plan, calculated to the finest detail. And at the most critical moment, it had gone impossibly wrong.
"You are not Magneto!" Shaw yelled again, just as the figure before him shimmered. The image of Magneto dissolved like smoke, revealing a mountain of a man in a crimson helmet and armor. It was Juggernaut, Magneto's most powerful enforcer.
If Mystique was Magneto's chief strategist, Juggernaut was his battering ram, one of the few beings on Earth who could go toe-to-toe with a full-strength Hulk and walk away. He was raw, unstoppable force.
An illusion. Someone had used an illusion to disguise Juggernaut as Magneto. Their entire operation had been compromised from the start.
"Azazel!" Shaw shouted, but before the word fully left his lips, Azazel's body erupted in a familiar flash of red smoke.
But he didn't reappear beside Shaw. The red mist solidified in the exact same spot, right in front of Juggernaut. A look of final, stark terror crossed Azazel's face as he realized his teleportation had failed, trapped by Shaw's own power field.
Juggernaut seized the opening. A ferocious grin spread across his face as he lowered his shoulder and charged. The impact sent Azazel flying like a ragdoll, crashing heavily into the dirt yards away. Before he could even try to get up, a pair of sharp, yellow claws pressed against his throat. Sabretooth, Logan's savage brother, loomed over him, a predator with his prey.
Azazel raised his head, his gaze finding Shaw in the distance, his eyes filled with worry. They hadn't just made a mistake; they had walked into a slaughterhouse.
But Shaw wasn't looking at him. His eyes were fixed on the space behind Azazel, where footsteps could now be heard. A figure emerged from the shadows, walking calmly toward them. It was the man they had come for. The true leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants.
Magneto.
His eyes were locked on Shaw, and Shaw alone. The grievances of decades were finally about to come to a head.
"Sebastian," Magneto said, spreading his arms in a gesture of grand welcome. "I never thought you'd deliver yourself to my doorstep. What a pleasant surprise." He glanced around the dense jungle, and as if on cue, figures began to emerge from the trees.
There was the beautiful, deadly Mystique. Pyro, the outcast from Xavier's school. A masked man in a grey hood—Mastermind, the illusionist. Avalanche, Mammoth, Toad, and dozens of other mutants stepped into the clearing. It seemed the entire population of Utopia had come to watch Shaw's downfall.
And among them, smiling sweetly, was the winged girl, Angel Selina Salvador. Their spy. The tragic twist became brutally clear: Magneto had discovered her long ago and had used her to feed them false information, turning their ambush into his own.
Shaw's mind raced, replaying every detail. Who was the leak? It could have been anyone. Stryker, the White House, the Mexican military. He doubted everyone, trusted no one. No one except Azazel.
But in the end, it all came down to one person. Eric Lehnsherr.
Magneto walked forward but stopped just outside the effective range of Shaw's energy field. He was a terrifying opponent, cautious and cunning. He wouldn't risk stepping into Shaw's trap. The powerful magnetic forces radiating from him pushed against Shaw's nuclear field, the two invisible energies battling for dominance.
"Can I ask you one question?" Shaw asked, cutting straight to the point. "When did you know I was coming?"
"A few days ago," Magneto answered without hesitation, a smirk playing on his lips. "Right after your little meeting with Stryker, someone sent me all the details. You're far too careless, Sebastian. Letting someone listen in on a meeting that secret? If I were you, I'd be too embarrassed to show my face."
"Emma," Shaw hissed, the name tasting like poison. It had to be Emma Frost. Her telepathic abilities were supposed to have secured their base. She must still be holding a grudge from what happened on Svalbard. He was a fool to have trusted her.
He was so blinded by his own arrogance that he never considered Emma's motives for joining him were never pure to begin with. Magneto's seemingly frank answer was just another lie, another secret hidden in plain sight.
"I have a question for you as well," Magneto continued, his tone turning to one of mocking disgust. "Why do you do it? Help ordinary humans hunt your own kind. Oh, but I forgot. You're not one of us. You're just a thief who stole a mutant's power."
The source of Shaw's ability was a dark secret. He wasn't born a mutant; he had acquired his power through grotesque experimentation, transplanting the organs of a true mutant into his own body.
"Mutants," Shaw scoffed, his voice calm and steady despite the situation. His words were daggers aimed at Magneto's oldest wound. "Everything is a transaction, Eric. To gain something, you must sacrifice something. Just like you. Without your mother's death, you never would have awakened your own magnificent power."
"How dare you," Magneto whispered, the words trembling with fury. "How dare you mention my mother!"
The air crackled. The magnetic field around Magneto exploded outward, violently pushing against Shaw's energy field, trying to crush it, to shrink the bubble of safety Shaw had created for himself.
A flicker of triumph lit up in Shaw's eyes. This was it. He slowly, consciously, began to retract his own energy field, feigning weakness, luring the enraged Magneto into his kill zone. If he could just get him to take one more step, he could unleash all his stored power and incapacitate him. Even thirty seconds would be enough for the fleet to launch its missiles and burn Utopia to the ground.
But just as Magneto was about to step forward, he stopped. The burning rage vanished from his eyes, replaced by a cold, calculating sneer.