They were idiots.
Who on Earth was stupid enough to put him in a plastic, concrete, and glass cell and then use metal handcuffs?
Honestly, humans.
He flicked his wrist, slamming guards into whatever wall they happened to be closest to.
They were far too pathetic to waste his effort on them, certainly not worth the effort of crushing their spines.
One guard did manage to shoot at him.
Erik just let the bullet fall a meter from his face.
Then he started shooting plastic bullets. Bothersome, but that was where it ended.
Metal peeled itself off from the wall, pulled the man into the said wall, and wrapped around his throat without a break of Erik's pace. Maybe he would find a way to escape, maybe he would die. Erik had no preference.
He flicked his hand, tearing a hole in the wall. It was mid-March outside and they were in Alaska. The cold ensured no one would be very alert, even if this happened to be the most heavily-guarded wall in the facility. It was not.
Only five soldiers stood by.
They sounded the alarm, but it was far too late for them.
He threw them into the ceiling. Why were they so utterly inefficient as to wear metal armor? Did humans have common sense these days?
Still walking at the same pace, Erik strode through the barren hallways.
Several humans attempted to stop him.
None succeeded.
He stopped in front of the door.
He opened the door without moving. The woman he had been forced to go down to the levels of being "captured" to rescue looked barely awake.
Then she saw Erik.
"Took you long enough."
"I thought you were dead."
He had imagined seeing Emma Frost alive many times. Each time was decades ago, he had been a very different man. Most of those imaginings had included emotions from both of them.
Then she had proved she was alive the first time she was captured, escaped, and their reunion was a bit rushed that time.
This time, there were none of those emotions.
He had almost forgotten the White Queen of the Hellfire Club was also the most ruthless and cold-hearted woman he knew, and he knew Mystique.
His head tilted up, removing Emma's bonds and the various pieces of equipment she was hooked up to.
"I did too."
"Are your powers still active?"
"I won't be much use during our escape attempt. The drugs take hours to wear off. How did you find out I was alive then?"
Straight to business.
He could appreciate that.
"I ran into research files of you, their attempts to create a telepath strong enough to fight Charles. They tried to get me alive, I figured I might as well turn it into an opportunity."
"They seemed to have failed." Even drugged, bloody, and injured in ten other ways, she looked elegant as she pulled herself into a walking position. "From what I have heard, becoming more powerful than Xavier is outside of even my current skills."
As usual, Emma Frost was right.
"Shall we go?"
She smiled, accepting his hand. And leaning on it quite a lot. He actually had to put in strength to keep her upright. She was also limping.
No matter.
The men holding her were not even a threat to Erik. They had been prepared to take Emma, to take a telepath and fill them with enough drugs to clog up their system. The same did not apply to an angry Magneto.
"Why did you come for me, Erik?" she asked once they were walking to the plane he took the liberty of stealing from a nearby airfield.
No point in lying.
"The Hellfire Club has become a problem. I need to tighten my grip on them. I neglected to worry about their human connections."
"I always did wonder why you underestimated them."
Nice of her to voice those concerns when it would have been helpful. If he was not seeing his… well, friend was not quite the word, but coworker did not describe everything the telepath had meant to him. If he was not seeing her for the first time in quite some time of believing her dead, he would probably say that aloud.
As it was, he was almost happy she was here.
"How would you feel about taking your place as the White Queen once again?"
She smiled that smile that suggested severe bodily harm for someone. "That sounds like a wonderful idea, Magneto."
He had briefly pondered on exactly what they had done to her, if she would be capable of handling so much immediately. Those words were exactly what he wanted. They were Emma's best-case scenario after just over a year of torture and experimentation.
Rage.
Anger.
Vengeance.
A desire to watch the world burn.
And no problem snapping the necks of anyone who got in her way.
Otherwise known as the perfect person to help wrangle the Hellfire Club into what it always should have been. Something that could pull political strings in ways he never could.
Yes, she would need time to adjust.
She would need time to heal. He would give her that time, but when she was done, the dawn of an era free from mutant persecution was coming. An era where his daughter could live without the pain he had suffered over and over and over.
The pair stepped inside his stolen jet.
Emma sat down immediately, panting slightly. He hated seeing a mutant like this, but there was no way to force drugs to leave her system. Nothing except time could heal.
He made no comment on the way her eyes looked different.
There were dark circles around her eyes, and not from exhaustion. She did not appear to be in danger of death from the withdrawal of that disgusting Kick, she could always fight it with her diamond form if necessary, but… it would take time.
He distinctly noted how the entire complex was still standing. Creed Financial's off-site facility was still standing. The complex they used to experiment on his kind was still standing. No one was dead, no one who hurt Emma Frost for over a year was dead.
She was halfway to unconsciousness against a wall now that she no longer had to fight to stay awake. She knew she was perfectly safe. Erik had no intention of hurting her or letting anyone else hurt her. He needed her expertise.
She would not care, he knew that.
And tomorrow would be his daughter's birthday.
Perhaps he would let them live after all. Lorna would be turning one tomorrow. It should be a day of life, not death and destruction. His way of giving her a gift despite being half a continent apart.
Then again, they had turned the elegance and control of Emma Frost into a mess of pain and suffering.
He tightened his fist to resist destroying the entire base.
When he got the news, Erik almost dropped the phone.
He did drop it, but it was small enough to catch with his powers on pure muscle memory.
His hand was shaking when he put it to his ear again. Plane crash. Arnold and Suzanna Dane. I'm her aunt, all pounded in his head.
"Did Lorna survive?" was all he could ask, the metal in the room clattering as he tried to keep from demolishing the Brotherhood's safe haven.
"She wasn't there. They left her with Suzanna's brother, but he's not fit to care for a child this long. Suzanna once told me that this number was a last-resort if Lorna's life was ever in danger. Can I ask who you are?"
Oh, how he wished he could tell the truth.
"They had an argument a few months before their marriage. I'm Lorna's father."
Hearing Suzanna was dead was… sad, but not devastating. She feared mutants, he knew the difference between fear of Magneto because of his past and fear of his mutancy. She had the latter. She was also engaged and had neglected to mention it.
So she was nothing more than the mother of his daughter and the last woman he intended to ever have sex with.
Hearing his daughter was orphaned was a different story.
"Oh… wow. That's…"
"I can't have this conversation on a phone line. Is she with you?"
"I'm going to pick her up tomorrow."
"When you get back, I will be there."
He hung up.
No one else was not on a mission or just out, living their life.
He was alone.
Alone so no one would hear every piece of metal in the area to find itself in a cyclone around the most powerful mutant alive as he let his emotions loose.