A/N: Hi, everyone! I'm really sorry I'm so late, but I've given enough excuses already. Let's just get down to business.
Just a couple of notes, I've done a few changes as I realised that in spite of my generally successful effort to correct poorly-done research and glaring continuity errors, there were a few minor and major ones that still stuck out, both from the show and in terms of my own work. These appear to have been wiped out, but if anyone has the time to message me, or point it out in a review if messaging takes too long (but private messaging is preferable), I'll do my best to correct it. I hope the changes don't throw anyone off if they're re-reading the fic. Thanks so much!
Genosha, Present Day (Several hours before the end events of Danger Ratings, Chapter 3)
The plane came around for the final run as it began its descent towards the island nation that lay directly below it.
"So how long have these kidnappings been going on for?" Beast yelled over the roar of the engine, having no other choice if he wanted to be heard.
"I'm not entirely sure," replied the pilot. "Official records have them going back as far as a week ago, but Lady Maximoff reckons that they've been happening for much longer than that. It's just that they've started picking up the pace and going into overdrive. At first, somebody would just go missing and we put it down to the gangs that started forming after the Sentinels attacked. Then two people would go missing, then three, then four, then five, you get the idea. We started doing head counts as best we could, but that just told us who was missing, not who'd been kidnapped already, or who'd been doing the kidnapping."
"And you've been unable to get the United Nations in to help on this one? They must have sent somebody over."
"We tried that. They sent a few peacekeepers to monitor the situation. The kidnappings stopped, and we even found one or two of the missing mutants. They left, assuming the situation had stabilised."
The pilot didn't need to explain what had happened afterwards, and the plane continued its descent towards what was clearly supposed to function as a runway. In reality, it merely looked like a minimal amount of debris had been cleared out the way, with long strips of wreckage hastily strewn together and smoothed out.
"That's supposed to be a runway?" Iceman was clearly alarmed by the sight. "You seriously take off from that?"
"Yep. Hold onto your seats. This is going to get pretty bumpy."
Pacific Ocean
The view from the ship was what could describe as fantastic, and for a few moments Erik Lensherr sat on one of the benches outside, not consumed by his thoughts. The sun was almost shimmering off the sea, as it slowly angled away behind the clouds. In an hour or two, it would disappear, and not appear again until the next morning at the earliest. That was the reason that he still remained on deck, instead of heading inside to his dark cabin, as it kept his thoughts at bay and gave his mind peace.
He waited for what he thought was only a minute, staring out towards the sea, so absorbed in the sight that he didn't notice half an hour pass him by, or even hear the people opening the door to join him, then heading back inside when they realised he wasn't fully paying attention to those around him.
Eventually, the sun finally set and he found his head filled with thoughts about what was happening in the world around him. In spite of the fact that Wanda and Lorna had banished him, and regardless of Pietro's turning him away, he wondered what was going on. When he had last seen his daughters, they had been outraged by his actions and banished him from the nation that he had almost completely burned to the ground, as he now supposed they should have. Pietro hadn't been faring much better either, clearly suffering from mental trauma and struggling to keep himself together. It seemed to him- no, it was true- that everything he loved and held dear was now in ruin.
Then his mind flashed back many decades, back to when he had been younger and living a quieter life with a woman who had once been his wife, although short of a photograph which he had been forced to leave behind in Genosha he had few memories left of her, most of them since overshadowed by tragedy, notably the death of Anya and Magda fleeing him in fear after his subsequent outrage and manifestation of his powers. He remembered how helpless he had felt as he had failed to save her, and how five men had held him back as he had tried in vain to resuscitate her, to bring her back.
If she were still alive, how would she look at the man that now sat on the bench? Would she have disowned him straight away, like Wanda and Lorna? Would she have turned on him later, like Pietro?
In a way, he was glad that she could not see the man her father had become.
The clouds above darkened, and he heard the rain drip down onto the deck, feeling it start to soak his face. Erik Lensherr finally rose from the bench, opened the door, and returned to his cabin, hoping that sleep would grant him some more peace.
Genosha
"Next time, could you just send Blink over here, to pick us up instead?"
The pilot did not reply, presumably taking offence to Iceman's comments.
"Bobby, hush," Storm scolded. "We have been invited here as guests and so we can provide aid. The last thing we need to do is spit in our own backyard."
"I'm pretty sure that isn't the exact phrase."
Again, nobody replied, and they walked down the nearly ruined street in silence, heading towards what remained of the palace Magneto had once lived in. All things considered, it seemed to have weathered the Sentinel attack relatively well, although some structural damage was faintly visible if you looked closely enough, with some walls being supported to prevent them tumbling down, and numerous makeshift support beams were positioned underneath the walkways, which were in dire need of repair.
As they passed, they noticed the houses and apartments surrounding them were stuffed to the brim with men, women and children, presumably with nowhere else to stay apart from the streets. Bins outside the houses were overflowing with rubbish, and it was obvious that somewhere along the street, several water pipes had burst, with several drains struggling to deal with the spillage.
"When I was last here, this area was filled with children playing and families. Now, it is almost unrecognisable," muttered Nightcrawler, clearly struggling to cope with the upsetting sight of such a place.
"Best steel your heart, stranger," the pilot said. "This area's been getting better since the attack, believe it or not. There are plenty of other streets where there's nowhere to stay at all, and nobody has any running water. At least here the crime rates have dropped, and the houses have been rebuilt. Come on, we need to see Lady Maximoff. She's doubtlessly been waiting a while."
There was no further discussion as they finally reached the palace gates, with a pair of suspicious guards pointing some sort of scanner their way, Polaris standing nearby to oversee security. It was tempting to almost ask why such a scanner was necessary, as almost everyone on Genosha seemed to be a mutant anyway, although Beast supposed it was likely a way of trying to catch out any potential shapeshifters and make sure people actually were who they claimed to be. Given the situation, it probably would be tempting to enter and claim to be a member of the nobility, if only to escape the almost unbearable life outside.
"Lady Maximoff will be waiting for you in the council room. Please enter."
The gates parted as Polaris raised both her hands, and the pilot took his leave as Storm walked into the palace first, followed by her team members as the gates closed again. Inside, more guards led them up the flight of stairs, towards a large pair of mahogany doors which opened to reveal an oval table, surrounded by several comfortable chairs. The walls were surprisingly bare, although the team suspected that portraits of Magneto and his ideal vision of Genosha had once been there for all to see.
At the head of the table sat a woman clad mostly in dark red, brown hair reaching halfway down her back, partially obscured by a scarlet crown from the front. A cape fell from her shoulders, although it had evidently seen better days, being slightly frayed at the edges. A pair of dark blue eyes stared in surprise at them for a moment, as if she hadn't expected to see anybody at all.
She doesn't trust Wolverine to stick to his word in such a difficult period of time, Nightcrawler thought. He supposed that it made sense at the end of the day, given her precarious position as Genosha's new head of state. This is her way of seeing where the whole team stands when push comes to shove.
"Storm, Beast, Iceman, Kurt," Scarlet Witch declared, smiling subtly in Kurt's direction. "Thank you all for coming here at such short notice. I take it you were filled in on the details during the trip?"
Storm nodded.
"Yes, thank you. Your pilot was surprisingly knowledgeable in terms of the kidnapping problem. Logan apologises for not coming personally."
"No apologies necessary, Ororo. Truth be told, I'm glad he's getting a bit of rest. That man sounded like he'd barely gotten to sleep."
There was an awkward silence, as Wanda realised she had said too much and spoken too freely. Even if she was in charge of Genosha and the X-Men were on relatively peaceful terms with her, insulting her guests wasn't a smart move. She made a mental note to keep her tongue in check, and cleared her throat.
"Anyway... let's get down to business."
The team moved forwards to sit around the table, Scarlet Witch also pulling up a chair. As they did so, a list of medical statistics was passed to beast, whereas Iceman was given a file regarding infrastructural damage and Nightcrawler was handed a file on gang activity. As each went over their respective documents, a portal opened on the same floor as the council room, and a multi-armed figure emerged, barely breaking stride as she knocked out a pair of nearby guards that came to investigate. Behind her, two bulkier Reavers appeared behind her as the portal closed, both heavily armed and looking eager for combat.
Quickly, they began marching towards the council chamber.
Okay, I'm aware that not only is this a rather small instalment which doesn't quite pick up from the cliffhanger where we left off (with the cliffhanger of this one being a little lacklustre), but I'm also conscious of the fact that development of this chapter has been extremely slow, in no small part due to work. One of the reasons for this is that I ended up rewriting quite a few scenes over and over again. I was originally going to make the scene with Magneto longer, with him chatting with a Japanese guy who'd lost his family in World War II. I wanted a parallel between Magneto and somebody else who'd suffered in a similar way to him, but unlike him eventually moved on. Unfortunately, I just felt the scene would be a bit boring for some, and I'd like to try fitting an already existing character in the mix from Marvel canon in general into the story, rather than make an OC with that big a role, at least at this point. A lot of OC characters tend to become polarising at best if given a big role (that's not to say that there are no good ones, it's just difficult to pull off), and I didn't want people to feel that Magneto was being overshadowed in his own section by some random guy with no name.
Some good/bad news. My travels and work haven't quite worked out the way I expected, in the sense that things seem to be wrapping up even earlier than I'd feared. This does give me the plus of, hopefully soon-ish, having more time to write and get Danger Ratings finished, hopefully by the end of March. I've also had a lot of time to think about story arcs to do in the future, as well as insert some characters into the mix, and I'm pretty excited.
Anyways, I promise that Magneto's angst arc will come to an end eventually; with that said, he's still not as humbled as his sins require he should be, so it may be a few chapters yet, probably even into the next story arc. Thanks for all your support once again, it really means a lot to me!