Chapter 9

Magneto, surrounded by a barrier of electromagnetic field, rose above the large city. He looked at the dark tower, surpassing every other building in a height. A few minutes earlier, he was inside this living structure and met with the being thanks to which the Cosmic Collective came into existence and settled its city on ruins of destroyed Tokyo. The proposal of the figure with Beyonder's appearance was tempting and could solve all problems with which Erik struggled through the majority of his life. The man was sure that the march of the Collective on his native Earth wouldn't be stopped by X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four or any other earthly power. The fight against such a powerful opponent would be as hard as a clash with Beyonder, but the one who would know exactly whom he was, what his main purpose in life was and additionally who would be assisted by a powerful army of planetary or even larger size. Eric knew that the haven built by the Saviour wasn't real and gave benefits only to the ones who would agree to sell ones souls. For him, the black-haired man in a white clothes wasn't a God building the New Heaven and the New Earth, but a Hitler with a cosmic power changing the world according to one's sick vision of the perfection. The man closed his eyes and listened intently to magnetic fields surrounding the city. Apart from millions of EM radiation sources coming from the technology which made the metropolis alive, Erik sensed also other sources, changing much more slowly than the artificial ones, but at the same time much more powerful. When he followed their track mentally, he understood what they actually were. The city drew thermal energy from streams of lava flowing under the earth's crust, additionally controlling them so that they weren't a threat to it in a form of earthquakes or volcanic explosions. Magneto clenched fists. If he tried, he could use a river of magma and destroy the black tower. How much damage could he cause? How many living beings could he annihilate? Suddenly, the man felt that a company had come near to him. General Kanzar and his battle airship appeared again to end his peace.

"Have you come here to force me to serve your lord? Remember what I can do with this vehicle and everyone on its deck." Erik announced not waiting for words of the grey-haired man.

"I didn't arrive here to threaten you. I want to offer you something else than our master wanted to give you."

"A few days here were enough for me to get to know this world and the truth about what the Cosmic Collective truly is. I've seen too much and now I'm able to recognize a dictatorship hiding under fine words."

Kanzar knew that he couldn't make Magneto listen to him. He changed tactics.

"Would you be able to rise high above the city? The force field above towers isn't strong and can be punctured even by a slowly moving object. The technology of our brothers provides the sufficient protection for us so we aren't afraid of an airstrike. Hardly anyone from inside could get so high."

"Why?"

"Because I want to be in a zone far from the awareness of our saviour, but I can't survive so high without my own source of oxygen. You can protect me, right?"

"Yes. I can surround our bodies with a force field. But what will I get after granting your request?"

"A next grain of truth about this place. If it doesn't appeal to you, you will be able to leave our town. Neither my soldiers, nor patrols of insectoids disturb you. You have my word."

Magneto looked at the man coldly. After a moment of thought, he answered.

"Ok. If you try to threaten me, you will suffocate deprived of my protection." He announced.

Erik surrounded his body and Kanzar's person with a barrier made of the electromagnetic energy. He rose above residential towers, above the black structure with the Creator of the Collective. The city was below, and there were only stars, the Moon and a strange, black structure resembling a long spear above.

"The Lance of the Darkness, the satellite assuring our safety in case one of the remaining countries of the world forsake its allegiance to the Collective." Kanzar said pointing at the object.

"Our saviour offered you a command over the forces of the Collective during the conquest of your native Earth, am I right?" He continued.

"Yes. I disagreed. I won't give my planet to the next tyrant."

"It wasn't only an attempt to bribe you. Our leader is really gearing himself up to seize the next world and your planet is on his way. And if you saw hundreds of races inhabiting this city, their technology, science and weaponry, I am sure that you will come to the only possible conclusion. If the Collective crosses gates of dimensions, the Earth will become its property, irrespective of who will fight in her defence.

"You arrived here to get rid of me, because all attempts to seize power over me ended with a failure? Your master sent you on a suicidal mission! Magnetic fields will rip you to shreds before you manage to touch me with your power." Magnus threatened the opponent.

"I am not a threat to you. I came here with you, high above the city and outside the range of drones from the black tower to ask you to close the wormhole and stop the march of the Collective."

Magneto was surprised hearing Kanzar's words.

"Why this sudden change of opinion? I remember your laudatory monologue about the Cosmic Community."

"In the past, I was fascinated with what the membership in the Collective gave me. I said to you that the Saviour had rescued my world of the war's destruction and it's true. But some years ago I came across beings who provided me with an evidence about what happened to worlds occupied by the Collective before, after the Saviour did a jump in the Multiverse. Our Institute of Science almost certified the authenticity of these proofs. When the Creator of the Collective gathers the energy to break across the border between the universes and move also millions of beings subbordinate to him, he takes the necessary power from the world which he leaves, turning it into a cold, quiet and dark desert, where no life will be born again. Beings who gave us the truth, helped us to build the structure protecting us from the Creator's telepathy. A few of my brothers from other worlds found the truth also and we've made a group of the resistance against the development of the Cosmic Collective."

"Where is my place amongst these great matters?"

"You may turn out to be our only hope. Before you appeared in our city, our friend, one of the ones thanks to which we realized what was going on, told us that a man from the other world with abilities to control four fundamental forces would appear soon, a man gifted to open and close wormholes between realities. If you come to the meeting of our secret society, our friend will explain the truth to you. Will you agree to come?"

"I will meet with him and your other companions. But I can't promise that I'll like all they will say to me."

Marcus stood on the board of the airship flying slowly above green areas of western Asia. Military forces of New Tokyo sent no pursuit after the rebels and the further journey proceeded very calmly. The man was watching white clouds moving and shadows of black of birds portentously circling overhead. Shola came up to him.

"Do you wanted to talk to me, Marcus?" The black man started the conversation.

"Yes... what's with Hub? How is your friend?"

"She is in the clinic and doctors are looking after her. Hub has teleported large mass for the first time. She has usually transported only herself or a few people. She couldn't withstand such a stress and she lost consciousness. They told me she should wake up soon and regain health quickly."

"That's great. I wanted to personally thank you for what you and your friends did for us. Combined forces of insectoids and the chosen ones almost shoot our vehicle down. You saved us all."

"I did it to save everyone. But I'm surprised that we managed to win so easily. It looked like they didn't use all of their power, they wanted to catch us alive."

"Yes. They wanted to catch Natalie and most probably had orders not to hurt her. The Creator of the Collective is afraid of her, but at the same time he is curious whom she really is and why she has powers equal to his."

"I must talk to her." Shola smiled.

"Yes, you must. This child relieves every pain and lets one to look ahead with a hope."

"What's with the insectoid prisoner whom we caught?"

"He's in the cell protected by a force field. He won't get out until there is a power shipboard."

"Have you tried to communicate with him?"

"Not yet. We cannot do it unaided by the computer, because our ears don't sense all frequencies of sounds made by his vocal tract and the only thing we can hear is a creaking sound. Valeria is trying to think out something using computers on the captain's bridge."

"Valeria... it puzzles me why she is so great in using the technology of the alien race."

"It's simple. She served in the crew of the chosen ones at one time. But don't mention it to my people, or she will have trouble. When she found the truth about what the Colective really is, she ran away from them and found our camp. Don't be afraid, I believe her because she has never cheated me."

Meanwhile, Wicked and Freakshow came back from the sickbay in which Hub was resting unconscious.

"History repeats itself. At first I was unconscious, now Hub is. It's unfair that it happens only to girls of our team."

"Yeah, and don't forget that we also lost Callisto. She went her own way."

"And Karima. At the very beginning. The fate is cruel for our women." Wicked laughed.

"Karima is with Magneto. Nothing bad will happen to her."

"Yes, but we are also lucky. Shola showed recently that he was equally powerful, or even more powerful than Magneto."

"Yes... everyone around me has extraordinary powers and can protect themselves, everyone apart from me." The boy said sadly. Wicked approached the door and went into the room after pressing the button.

"Come in. What are you waiting for?" She said to the young mutant.

"I'm going." Freakshow and Wicked came inside the room which given to the girl as residential lodgings. Wicked sat down on the bed which was the only piece of furniture in the cramped room without a window.

"Sit down." She suggested.

"What did you say a moment ago?" She asked.

"I said that everyone around me try to help with all their might, but I don't have a power to do anything useful."

"Don't you have a power? You can reshape into forms limited only by your imagination. I would call it an extraordinary power."

"But is such an ability useful? Shola and Hub rescued ship from an attack by the enemy, your abilities to summon ghosts let us win the confidence of rebels and even they're doing great, although they're only people with a military training."

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself, or I will throw you out! You cannot destroy the army of bugs with one blow, but you cannot think that you're worthless! When I was ill and I fainted, you carried me and later you were by me at the bed! Do you think that I don't remember it? I don't want to hear that you aren't useful to the team, because you helped me very much. Or perhaps for you I'm not a part of the team ?" The girl was irritated.

"I didn't mean it... Wicked..."

"Not Wicked, but Alexandra." The mutant girl approached the boy, embraced him and kissed him before he could answer her.

Almea crawled along a ventilation duct from the cargo bay of the ship all the way to research and living quarters. She moved in a complete darkness and silence, passing by elaborate electronic sensors completely imperceptibly. Disturbing the functioning of recorders was an ability with which Almea was born, which activating during her adolescence year and caused that she had been appointed to the army of the Empire ruling her native world. The woman had one task, to reach the room of little Natalie and see with her own eyes the girl who was able to destroy the one because of whom she lost her perfectly organised world. She knew that kidnapping her couldn't be possible during the air travel, but simultaneously she hoped to get to the Ocean City and from there back to Tokyo with the girl. Living by the commander of the army Kanzar's side, she knew that the city hidden beneath the dome of seawater wasn't a legend, but a real place avoided by important persons of the Cosmic Collective for some unknown reason. At some point, the black-haired girl stopped, since she noticed something in the room directly below that interested her. She saw the cell with insectoid soldier. She smiled.
An action plan appeared in her head. She touched the electronic lock on the ventilation flap and jumped into the room in front of the cell.

Magneto and Kanzar walked along a narrow corridor and entered a room on its other side. After passing a small anteroom in which only flowerpots with flowers from different worlds were placed, they reached the meeting room. Erik saw the clandestine congregation about which the white-haired commander told him. All members of the group created to fight the master of the Cosmic Collective were sitting by the oval table. Almost all were present, Zeta Reticulian, reptiloid, the man in the golden mask, insectoid, little girl controlled by the cube held in her hands, mysterious individual in the golden armour and Dr. Mahler. Only black-haired Almea was absent because she was on the rebels' aircraft. Everyone looked at the grey haired man.

"Comrades, today the man who will help us end the march of the Cosmic Collective through the Ladder of Creation is standing before you all. He is Erik Lensherr, Magneto, the man who was brought here by our companion, the last representative of Cosmic Brothers." Kanzar looke at the individual in the Golden Armour.

"Let me introduce my allies to you, Erik. Comrade Knueq'ukx representing the race of the Zeta Reticulian, Comrade Xyrraks from Usmerth world, Comrade Cik from Cleylara world, Comrade Iz'ynt from the synthetic planet Oscion, Comrade Exbris, Dr. Mahler from the Institute of the Science and the last traveller from Cosmic Brothers, who first opened us all our eyes and show the possibility of liberation from the yoke of the Cosmic Collective." Kanzar described Zeta Reticulian, reptiloid, insectoid, cube resting on knees of the black-haired girl, the man in the golden mask, the old woman and the person in a golden, richly ornamented armour.

"Of course, I don't want you to just believe everything that I told you during our flight above our city. In order to show that our group is honest with you and we really want to help you to get back home, we want to give you a gift as the indication of our goodwill. Dr Mahler, could you bring our second guest to us?" The long-haired man turned to the grey haired woman.

" Of course, general Kanzar." Doctor Mahler got up from the chair and went to other room. After a moment, she came back, bringing Karima Shependar along.

"Karima?" Erik was surprised.

"Erik" The woman was equally surprised. Nobody told her that she was supposed to meet one of her friends from Genosha. She ran up to the man and cuddled up to him.

"Karima... what happened? You changed... I sense no mechanical parts in you..."

"Yes. They rebuilt my body. They gave me biological substitutes of all organs which I lost becoming Omega Sentinel. They didn't want to tell me nothing. I thought that I was the only person who survived."

"Now you know that we are your allies, Erik. Sit down here, the an adequate place by our table." Kanzar pointed at the oval chair standing by the table.

"Our friend, a stranger from the other world as you, Erik, will explain your role in the coming conflict."

Magneto sat down on the spot pointed by the long-haired man. A voice of the strange person in the armour sounded in his thoughts.

"I am one of the ones who, because of their pride and a contempt for secrets of the universe brought the illness of the Cosmic Collective's Creator to your world. If not our curiosity, willingness of the expansion and control of larger and larger energies, this being would never appeared in this reality.
I don't remember details since it happened an inconceivably long time ago and my body was modified many times in order to survive in the space completely different from my homeland. I don't remember too much from the times when I still had a bodily form instead of my current energy form of the antimatter closed in the carapace. If my brothers, with whom I share the sin and the collective memory, were here, I could clarify more details about the Creator of the Cosmic Collective. I and my brothers followed this being to every new world which it conquered and we were witnesses of the death of the space-time continuum in the worlds which it left. I know only that the Creator of the Cosmic Collective is a parasite, needing a huge amount of energy to live. He needs even more energy to move him and everyone whom he cheated with his lies, to the new world. I and my brothers travelled across mltiverse in search for the medicine for this epidemic created by us. At one time, one of us found a strange crystal in the cold wilderness of the intergalactic space in which faces all reality could be seen. And in one of them, we noticed the person with an extraordinary abilities of ruling over four fundamental forces. You were this person, Erik Leshner."

"I am afraid that you made a mistake. I am not such powerful." Magnus said.

"You can not only because your mind does not grasp the mysteries of reality. Therefore we had to increase your subconscious reasoning of the world and enable the intuitive control over fundamental forces. We waited, until the Team came into the world separated from your native world only by one brane and thanks to one of my brothers' sacrifice the technology of the Cosmic Collective, we created a miniature version of the wormhole."

"Did you kidnap me here?"

"No. You created the tunnel yourself, because our experiment was a success. My brothers found a way to activate the knowledge of fundamental forces in your mind."

"Why do you need me, since you admitted a moment ago that your brothers had a power to open the wormhole? Cannot you stop march of the Collective closing its tunnel in a similar manner?"

"No Erik. The tunnel of the Collective is too stable and leads deep up the Ladders of the Creation.
We aren't powerful enough to close such a complicated structure."

"And do you think that I am strong enough?"

"No. But you are the only person who can talk with multiverse and ask it to close the tunnel destroying the Cosmic Collective once and for all."

Magnus fell into a pensive mood. Eyes of each of members of the secret society sitting by the round table were turned at his direction. Kanzar stood beside waiting for the reaction of the man. Erik got up.

"Your story differs little from what Kanzar said to me earlier, and what I heard from the Creator of the Team later. I have no certainty whether it isn't the same set of lies." Magneto looked at Karima.

"I won't trust you only because you helped one of my charges. But I will make the most of every opportunity to get my entire group home. Now you must forgive me, since I need more time for the thought." Erik got up from the chair. Kanzar came up to the grey haired woman.

"Doctor Mahler, please show our guests their rooms." He ordered.

"Ok. Kaylee, we're going together." The woman turned to the black-haired girl who was a carrier of the synthetic life form. When Kaylee tried to get up, reptiloid put his paw covered with slippery and cold scales on her shoulder.

"No! We still have a few matters to discuss and we need Comrade Iz'ynt."

"But Kaylee must rest!" Mahler didn't give up.

"We will take care of little Kaylee. Without her we would lose Comrade Iz'ynt." Xyrraks looked at the old woman angrily.

"Dr Mahler, we will bring you Kaylee when our Comrade releases her." Kanzar cut in on the conversation stopping the conflict. Erik, Karima and Mahler left the conference room. The stranger in the golden armour also rose from his chair.

"Everything what was needed, was handed over. My time in this place was too long. I will appear when I am needed again." His psionic voice sounded in minds of all group members. The golden armour waved in the air and faded away like a morning fog.

Almea stood opposite insectoid captured during the attack on the aircraft. Yellow pane, strengthened additionally by a force field, isolated the woman from the green being with the appearance of a mantis. Almea smiled.

"You're sitting here as an animal in a zoo. The right place for such a monster like you." She said smiling to the insect soldier.

"You can't even image how this view pleases me, but I have good news for you. You're needed for my plan and therefore I'll not only let you live, but also I'll give you the freedom. Are you pleased,bug?" She added. The alien uttered squeeking noise. Unaided by the computer, he wasn't able to understand Almea's words.

"Thanks to my curse, I'm almost undetectable for the technology. Systems of the aircraft didn't raise an alarm, because they didn't detect me as an intruder. The camera observing the cell went dead as soon as I entered here and therefore we don't have much time. Rebels are already coming here. My curse lets me do something more." The woman approached the cell. She touched the panel controlling electronics inside the room with one hand, and the second one she gently leaned against the force field. After a moment, the barrier disappeared, and the electronic lock broke down, opening the cell.

"I can destroy every type of the technology if I try." Almea approached the insectoid. The alien answered her with sounds incomprehensible to the human's ears.

"What are you waiting for?! You are free! Hide before they find you!" She said. When the alien ran out to the corridor and Almea entered the ventilation tunnel, devices inside the cell returned to the full efficiency. The alarm rang in the room, audible on all corridors of the residential part of the ship as well as inside the captain's bridge. Valeria looked at blinking red lamps on walls and on her computer with a fear. Marcus and Shola already came back to the operations room. The bearded man ran up to the chair of the girl. He looked over her shoulder at the monitor.

"What happened?" He asked.

"The cell of insectoid is empty. Our prisoner broke free." The woman replied.

"What? How was it possible?" Marcus was irritated very much.

"Security procedures. You must imprison him in one of corridors."

"I cannot. Somebody or something blocked my access to the ship. Insectoid can be hiding literally everywhere."

"Damn it! Are we in contact with the rest of the deck?"

"Yes. I can connect us."

"Do it Valeria!" Marcus waited impatiently to make an announcement. Shola thought about the fact that the strange soldier could threaten his injured friend, because she contributed to the death of many of his companions.

"Hub..." He thought aloud and moved to the exit from the captain's bridge of the ship."

"Attention! We have an intruder aboard! Don't try to establish contact with him if you aren't armed! He can be very dangerous! If you have a weapon, gather into larger group and try to stop him! Remember that he is our prisoner of war, therefore try to catch him alive! I repeat, the prisoner of war must be brought to the cell alive!"

Trevor and Alaina were walking along the corridor in the residential section, when they heard the announcement of their commander. The black man smiled.

"I wanted to kill this bug ftom the beginning. Now you can see why." He said to the blonde.

"Marcus said that we are supposed to catch it alive."

"I don't understand why he worries about such a bug. Just crush his head and we're done."

Alaina looked at the friend.

"And you want to spend the rest of the travel shut in your cabin?" Trevor sighed from an annoyance.

"Ok. But if this monster give me reason to kill it, I won't think twice. And you'll say I did it in a self-defence."

"Of course. But perhaps we should bring somebody to help us?" The girl asked knowing that there was the Wicked's cabin nearby. She entered not-invited into the room. She found black-haired mutant girl sitting astride on knees of the boy, embracing him and kissing him passionately.

"End of pleasure! We have an intruder aboard! You're going with us!" She shouted. All four of them ran into the side corridor, where a few rebels dressed in uniforms were gathered.

"What is happening here?" Trevor asked one from of them.

"Insectoid barricaded itself in one of storerooms. We tried to drag him out from there. He hurt Shiro." The soldier pointed at his friend sitting by the wall, touching his bleeding arm. The black man reloaded the handgun

"I will smash his head. It will end." He ran into the warehouse and noticed insectoida. The alien squawked in his language, but didn't attack the man because he knew that he hadn't been faster than speeding bullet.

"We must catch him alive!" Marcus' voice coming from loudspeakers sounded in the room.

"He hurt one of us! Do you want us to die? We have to smash up this bug!" The black man answered.

"No! Can't you see that he's horrified?" Wicked ran between Trevor and insectoid.

"Get out of my way, girl!" Trevor became nervous.

"I... I feel his fear and loneliness..." The girl continued.

"I don't understand it, but I know that he was removed from his swarm. Something similar has never happened earlier in his life. He's feeling now as me then, when I lost my apparitions. Energy of killed aliens aboard... I feel it, it's approaching me..." Wicked's eyes glistened with a blue glow and a translucent fog started forming around her body.

"Damn it, what is she doing?!" Trevor was rerrified as the manifestation of the mutant girl's power assumed shapes of ghosts of killed insectoids. He turned to Freakshow.

"Listen! Calm your girl down, because if I'll do it, you won't have somebody to fuck at nights!"

Spectral insektoids gathered around their living companion. Their squawking was heard around, but it seemed to came not from their semitranslucent mouth orifices, but somewhere from a distance, from other room, from other world. Their noise resembled sounds recorded on an old gramophone record, played in the darkened room. To surprise of the black man and satisfation of black-haired mutant girl, apparitions calmed the stranger. He stopped responding to the presence of people and started quiet conversation with his dead companions. Wicked came up to Michael.

"I have an idea how to communicate with him. You must change into something like him!"

"I never copied other form! I have always changed into something random, something from my imagination!"

"It's about time to try."

"Try or else I'll crush his head." Trevor announced angrily.

"All right..." Freakshow cautiously approached to insectoid and having looked at him for a moment, he started to morph into organism similar to him. He looked at him through a compound eyes trying to imitate his speech. Then the conversation took place, completely incomprehensible to people around. After a few minutes of the intense talk, the boy changed his form into human again.

"We were cheated! He's only a bait. We have a real intruder aboard. She freed insectoid, because the technology stops to work because of her special powers."

"Is an intruder a woman?" Alaina asked.

"Yes."

"And where is she now?"

"He doesn't know, but she doesn't plan anything good."

"I heard everything." Marcus' voice coming from loudspeakers sounded in the corridor.

"Valeria, check whether we have some serious failures onboard." The bearded man turned to the assistant.

"I'm already checking..." The girl was working with the computer. She got scared.

"Oh... problems with powering in the residential section. Where Natalie is!"

Meanwhile, Almea was standing above unconscious Mary lying on the floor. She looked at the girl with fair hair and blue eyes standing before her.

"Who the hell are you..." She thought seeing her hypnotizing gaze.

Magneto, Karima and Doctor Mahler left the meeting room. The woman was supposed to show Erik his new lodgings at the Institute of the Science. Other members of the secret society stayed by the table.

"Everything is going according to our plan, comrades." Xyrraks announced smiling. His forked tongue came out from between his sharp teeth. Cik squawked and his words were translated by the computer into the sentence intelligible to other group members.

"If events develop quickly, we won't need extra protecting in the form of that human child."

"We must exploit all abilities. Ceasing to try to get this child would be illogical, if the search has already started." Iz'ynt communicated its remark using the black-haired girl keeping it on her knees.

"Provided we can hope that she will fall in our hands." Reptiloid said looking at the white-haired man.

"Don't you worry, comrade. Almea will perform the task entrusted her." Kanzar replied.

"We can prepare for our next move." Knueq'ukx ended the short conversation of the group.

"Thanks to our old and new friends, we will separate ourselves from the Cosmic Collective and its founder, parasitizing on the life force of our homelands. We will leave behind the Creator of the Collective in this dying world, where he will be destroyed by his own entropy. And we, comrades, we will get a new brand world, perfect for the conquest and repopulation by our countrymen."

Professor Xavier looked out of the window of the study at the hospital turned by him into a base for group of former Magneto's Acolytes. He expected Amelia, whom he earlier had sent after the last of recruits. His telepathic mind sensed a friend arriving in the same moment as the first molecules of her teleportation fogs appeared in the room. After materializing her body, the woman stood up by the professor.

"Neophyte is already with the rest of the group. He joined us of his own free will and I didn't have to do much to convince him."

"Great. I think that he will be the last member of my team." The Professor answered coming back to looking through the pane at the world apart from four walls of his study.

"Charles... I saw Acolythes myself a moment ago. I talked to them and they surprised me. Everyone were calm and none of them wanted to tear your head off. They are ready to train under your eye and to accomplish every mission associated with the search for Magneto. What is going on here Charles? Did you do it? Do you control their minds?" Amelia was alarmed. She was afraid that Xavier would use his abilities on her as he did many years ago. She was afraid of feeling helplessness which she had felt when she had lost control of her own body.

"No, Amelia. I changed the thought of none of them. There are other ways to win allies over. Some of them really want to find Magneto. He was somebody like a Messiah for them, so their decision should not surprise you. You also belonged to this group in the past. Others required different kind of an incentive in the form of the cash. Others felt that they should serve me after I defeated their old commander, Exodus. Some of them were lost and the membership in my squad was a help for them.
I know that my ways are morally reprehensible, but I swear I changed the personality of none of your old friends telepathically. You must trust me."

"Perhaps I'm prone to believe you. But why Acolythes? Why didn't you turn to X-Men for help?
I don't believe that you wanted to keep the mystery of Magneto at all costs... after all you have evidence that it he was not responsible for the massacre in New York... in the form of the coffin stamped with a seal with the real perpetrator of genocide inside. When you told me about your meeting with strange aliens I started understanding your game. Have you looked into their minds and saw their memories, am I right? You saw something so horrible that you didn't want to expose your students to it, right? Are Acolythes a cannon fodder for you, somebody to be killed, somebody who is easy to replace?"

"Amelia, the problem of Magneto dissapearance is far more complicated than it seems to you."

"I want to know the truth, Charles. I want to know why I'm sending my old companions to a certain death."

A door creaked and a fat woman in glasses went into a room.

"Mildred? What happened?" The professor asked.

"We are talking here..." Amelia protested.

"Yes, something very important. Two pirates who recently had attacked us in Genosha were caught. They are held in the X-Corporation office. I don't know in which one, but I should track it down somewhere in the cyberspace." Book ainformed and left the room.

"You have a part of your reply Amelia. X-Men should not be involved in an attack on the prison and kidnapping of known criminals, but we're going to do it."