Chapter 12: The Cauldron, Part 1

Ethan was still in the pol as he thinks he heard Scott's car entering the mansion area. As he made his way out of the pole to go in he suddenly heard a scream and when something come flying in the air. He run around to the side of the house just in time to see Jean get drag down in the metal ball, a silver sphere, and disappeared.

"Jean!" He yelled.

"No, I wasn't finish jet!" Ethan notice Todd in the well. He walks over and drag him up.

"What happened?" he demanded to know and Todd only look scared of him as Ethan had start to use is illusion to make fire surrender them, to scare him. "Where did it took Jean?"

"I'm not telling you anything." Ethan throw him on the ground.

"I don't have time for your games, Todd-" Ethan was cut off as Todd try to use his tongue to hit him in the face. He missed but the sludge came in Ethan's fence. "Todd!" he yelled and reach his hand at him. Todd seeing a wall stop and then feeling the gravitation take him was done on his stomach.

"Let me go!" he screams. "I need to get another shot."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ethan asked as he walk over.

"It's all to prove who is stronger, now let me go!" Ethan was going to ask something then the sludge in his face was annoying and start to make him lose concentration for a moment. At that time, Todd was free and escaped. Ethan got the sludge away.

"Gross!" he complains and look back at the house. Storm was walking in and a cat was waiting outside. "Since when did we have a cat here?" Ethan wonder as he run over. He enters the door and look around. No one was there.

"I don't know why you have chosen to attack me and in truth, I don't much care. But this is my home and you are not welcomed here!" Ethan look up to the second floor and saw steam cover the sight. In the next second Mystique came flying.

"Mom?" he asks and saw Strom come walking down.

"Ethan?" Storm ask. "Do you know why she is here?" he shook his head.

"Todd was just outside and something like-" he was cut off as a similar silver sphere came through the ruff. "Something like that took her." he finished and jumped away to not get hit. It came one more.

"What is this?" Storm ask and one of the sphere opened and took her.

"Storm!" Ethan called and try to run over to her, but the other had taken him.

"No!" Mystique yelled. "You promise not to touch him!" Ethan didn't get the chance to understand that she was talking about as he was in the sphere and everything went black. The sphere was nothing nice. Tubes resembling snakes pressed him to the side as one went around his throat and the others his leagues and wrist. Before he knew it, the sphere opened again, but he wasn't in the hall anymore. And Storm or his mother was nowhere to be seen, but someone else was.

"Ethan!" his father called.

"Dad?" Ethan call and try to take a step as he had fallen out of the sphere, but with his legs tied together and his hands he only ended up on his knees.

"Erik!" Ethan look up as he saw a man levitating in the air. All in a red metal armor and a cape in purple. Ethan understood who he saw. It was Erik Lehnsherr, or as he apparently calls himself, Magneto.

"I can't do that, Charles." Magneto told his old friend. "Mystique has told me a lot about-" he was cut off as he starts to feel someone come through his helm. He looks at Ethan and it told him it didn't work. Looking around fast Ethan saw Sabretooth and use his powers on him. He made him see Logan instead of Magneto and he responded directly with attacking him. "Sabretooth, stop!"

"Your friend doesn't look to like you much." Ethan said and smirked. It however disappeared as the metal tube around his throat tighten. He stops focus as he lost his breath. He falls to his side and Sabretooth had stop try to get to Magneto who was in the air.

"Don't be so reckless, son." Magneto said and let him breath again.

"What do you want?" Charles ask him.

"All I ask for is to you to side with me and not against me." Magneto answer as Ethan focus on breathing.

"Your invitation begs the question; what happen to those who won't come willingly? And what does Ethan do here?" Magneto turn to start walk and Ethan, because of the metal in the tube holding him, start to fly up in the air. The tube around his throat was still tight, but he could at least breath.

"If necessary, sometimes salvation must be force-fed." Magneto explained as the came around a corner and there was three persons in a container of somehow, looking like they was sleeping.

"Jean?" Ethan whispered as he saw her in the middle between Rogue and Storm. Charles look terrified as he first saw them. "Let them out!"

"I will, then they are ready to become their true forms."

"Magneto, you haven't saved them, you have abducted them!" Charles yelled at him. Ethan notice Lance and Fred together with the speedster, Pietro, enter to stand beside Magneto.

"A certain amount of persuasion may still be needed I will admit, but for every unbeliever there are a new convert." as he said that the doors opened.

"Scott?" Charles asked and saw him. "Scott, I don't understand." He was all shocked.

"Professor, wait. We are only here to listen." Scott told him.

"And they," Ethan asked. "Are they here to listen as well? What about me? Stuck?" he nodded his head to Rogue, Jean and Storm.

"Hey, what is this!" Scott turn to Magneto.

"Simply a safety guard, not everyone is as willing as you to listen to new changes."

"Let them out, now!" Scott yelled and was on his way to take his glasses of. Lance walk to stand between them, but Magneto only put him friendly to the side.

"I will, we just need to proceed cautiously, trust me. they are perfectly safe." he told him. Ethan saw his father putting his hand to his head and start to mind speak to Scott as his face changed. Magneto, notice it as well and turn to Charles. He made his wheelchair turn and go into a fourth container and become sedated. Ethan reacted and turn to Scott and the others. Magneto understood that he was going to do and before he knew it a new tube covered his eyes.

"Looks like you need to see your target to focus, don't you?" Magneto spoke.

"Basters! I will kill you."

"That will have to wait." Ethan, felt he was moved and he was taken to another room.

After a time, Ethan heard the door opened and footsteps. He was still stuck with the tube around his eyes and the one around his throat. However, he was now in a chair and his hands was tied behind his hands. He didn't need to see to guess it was Magneto as the metal of his armor sounded very clear.

"What do you want, Magneto?" Ethan asked.

"I want to know more about your powers." he answered. I'm sorry for the blindfolded, but I wouldn't want to take any risk, even with my helm."

"Coward."

"I'm just too close to risk anything." Magneto responded. "Now, we have figured out you can make people see what you want them to and you need to see your target. What more can you do? Your mother told me about elements?"

"My mom doesn't know anything about me."

"Well, that's not true. She knows you better than you think." Ethan grown. "Didn't she tell you last time she saw you? She has been there all the time. You grow up without knowing she was watching you, Ethan."

"Well, I don't really care."

"She wasn't kidding with you being cold hearted." Magneto stated.

"I'm not, I just don't see the point in being nice to you."

"We are not that different you know. We are very much alike."

"Somehow I doubt that." Ethan told him.

"You haven't join the X-Men." Magneto stated. "You are still doubting about humans and mutants living in peace together. You want to know it takes power to get others to follow you. You do what's needed to get what you want, example leaving everyone just because you thought you could close the doors."

"I successes, did I not?" Ethan cut him off.

"You did, but you were not sure at the time, but still you left your friends." Magneto persisted. "We are more alike than you think. Think what we can do together. We could teach those humans what we exist and are to rule! We could rule the world and have all the power." Ethan didn't respond as he didn't know what to say. "Your mother told me something you had said once," Magneto added. "It's about power and survive. Power is to survive and survive is to have power. Without one of them you are domed. The world is to take the weak away and the stronger to rule. Wasn't that some spirit?" Ethan didn't answer. He remembers when he had said that. It wasn't long before Nightcrawler and the others had joined. He had been with his father, talking about his bond with Jean and his powers. They had start talk about Ethan training to much and not stop to have fun more than with Jean. Not stop to get friends other than Jean and Scott, not that he counted Scott as a good friend. They might have lived together for a long time, but that didn't meet they would be counted as friends.

"I said that to my father month ago." Ethan whisper. "How did my mother knew that?"

"Like I told you, she has been around you all the time."

"Impossible, I would be able to feel her." Ethan regretted his words the second they left his mouth.

"Feel? Yes, Mystique mention something about you feeling other's present. However, she seems to found a way around that." Ethan grown again as he understood.

"Spies."

"Your life must be quite interesting, Ethan." Magneto said. "Your dad wants you to join him and give the human and mutant a chance. Your mother is against it and would easy be able to kill someone. They are like black and white who once was close friends. Or more than that. You are all gray. Not knowing what you want, what you believe and you have a sweet girlfriend who are on your father's side, but at the same time others who don't trust you like Wolverine are at your father's side as well. Complicated."

"She isn't my girlfriend." Ethan muttered and smirked. "She kind of hates me right now."

"Why does you smile that much?" Magneto asked him. "Something funny with the fact you don't seem to be able to get the girl your parents seem to know you have feelings about?" Ethan let a laugh slip out. He still had his smirk on his face.

"It's funny how you keep talking like I would join you." he answers. "You right, I'm not an X-Men, maybe I never will become. But I'm not on my mom's team or yours either. I will stand with my family, and they just happened to be more at the X-Men side."

"You are making a big mistake thinking they will win this. In just some minutes, Scott and his brother will enter my Genetic Enhancers. I build it with the help of Gem of Cyttorak. With the help of my device the radiation with the gem can enhance the powers of any mutant exposed to it, to the point of causing their bodies to change to adjust to the enhancement and power boost. It will make us, the mutant, able to control our powers." Ethan should have stared at him speechless if he had been able to see, instead he just was silent for a while before responding.

"You are sick."

"I'm the future for our kind."

"Which future?" Ethan asked him. "The one you rule? What kind of life would that be? I would rather die than follow under your-" Ethan stop talk as it become hard for him to breath. He careful tried to take each breath deep in case the tube would become tighter and top him from get air at all.

"I would watch the mouth of yours." Magneto told him. "I don't need you alive, but you are a great way to reach Charles on. He would do anything to protect you, wouldn't he?" the tube let go a bit, but it was still tighter than it had been before. "I will get you when the show starts, but I expect you to behave, or I might cover your eyes again. I will cover your mouth, that's no doubt." Ethan heard Magneto leave and it was a relief as he took each breath deeper and longer. One thing was for sure, he would make Erik Lehnsherr feel pain.