Is there no privacy to be had around here? First Mystique, now Charles, and whatever nonsense is going on—. Sabertooth and Wolverine were at each others throats, of course, that was what he saw first. They were easily dealt with; one thought and Wolverine was suspended safely out of reach. "What did I tell you?" he asked Sabertooth.

"Didn't start it." rasped his cohort.

"I don't care." Suddenly Erik became aware that the focus of attention had shifted—to somewhere behind and to the right of him. He turned to see—Grace. Or a coarse caricature of her, her features turned hard, her humor transformed to cruelty. She was exaggeratedly pregnant, her belly a bloated mountain, her breasts massive and pendulous.

"Mystique." he hissed, trying to put all the menace into her name that he could. If Grace sees her, the chances of seeing my child before it turns eighteen are essentially nil, and mutantkind will pass the way of the passenger pigeon—extinct. His expression must have been enough to cow her, for she morphed back into herself.

He heard Xavier's chair behind him, and the telepath said, "It's obvious matters are far too complicated to resolve here and now. Erik, I propose we extend the truce and relocate to my school, where we can discuss matters at our leisure."

"I accept." Erik said. "Furthermore, I suggest that we both leave our troublemakers here to make their own way home." He grinned at the three instigators.

"That seems fitting." the Professor agreed.

"You gotta be kidding." protested Logan.

"Look on the bright side, Logan—this way you can smoke on the way back. You know you can't light up around a pregnant woman," Scott jibed.

"I'm ready. Eleanor, thank you so much. I'll call you." Grace appeared in the doorway, two bags over one shoulder . She hugged an older woman, who did a double-take at the sight of him and looked significantly at her friend. Hmmm. A confidant, perhaps? Women tell each other things men would never dream of.

Grace looked back and forth between the X-men and Erik for a moment, then went after Xavier's group. She cast a long look at him back over her shoulder. Soon, my dear, soon.

He turned to his group as the jet's ramp pulled up and the hatch closed. "All right. Sabertooth, start walking."

"Hey! What about me?" Wolverine waved from his vantage point in mid-air.

"Oh, yes. I'm going to give you a head start." Using his powers, Magneto threw him in the direction of Lake Michigan, in a long, high arc. That won't hurt him—not permanently, at any rate.

He turned to Mystique. "I'm sorry that it must come to this, but you would be wise to remove all traces of yourself from my fortress before I return there."

"Out with the old and in with the new, is that it? Erik, I hope she is your 'Maeve', I truly do. You'll have every mutant in the world burning candles in front of her picture, right beside yours, if she is, I know it. More, I hope she's everything you could want or need. And then I hope she breaks your damned heart worse than Magda did."

"If you get going now, I'm sure you could catch up with Sabertooth. Perhaps you could make another Sapient baby." he replied.

If her eyes had powers like Cyclops', I would have a large gaping wound in me right now. he thought, but she turned and went.

He recalled his helmet, and brought it gliding out of the house to his hand. Turning to the Toad and Callisto, he told them, "We are going to Xavier's estate. Let me make myself abundantly clear. You will be on your best behavior, or I shall turn you over to the humans for test subjects. Do you understand?"

They nodded. "Good. Go ahead; I'll be there in a moment." The Lexus must be Grace's—the decal of a ball of yarn with two knitting needles through it is a dead giveaway. No sense in leaving it for the mob to destroy. The lock turned at a thought, and he checked the registration. It was hers. Shoddy fiberglass body. Modern cars.

There was enough metal in it for him to bring it along, however. Thus did Magneto perpetrate one of the oddest cases of Grand Theft Auto in the history of stolen cars.

Once he and his abbreviated Brotherhood were on their way, he inquired of Callisto, "What did you make of Ms. Engstrom?"

"She's a level four, solid. She has a healing factor, nothing like as strong as Wolverine's, maybe a tenth of what he has. There's something going on in her brain that's like telepathy, but that isn't what it is. I don't know what to call it, I don't have the right words. She's got a whole set of powers that are just waiting, still, and I don't know what they are, either, but I think—I think they have to do with being pregnant."

"With being pregnant…" She is 'Maeve'. She is. Mutantkind will have a future.

"Is what Mystique was getting at true? Did you knock her up?" Callisto asked.

"First of all, you will never—and I mean never—use such vulgarity in connection with Ms. Engstrom again. Someday you may understand why. If anyone else in the Brotherhood does so, I will expect you to correct them in my absence. That having been said, it is none of your business." Which, of course, she will read as 'Yes.'

Her face contorted into a dubious grimace. "What on earth does that face mean?"

"Eeeew." escaped her lips.

"Further vulgarity." He transfixed her with a stare. "Believe it or not, it is possible for people my age to have sex and even enjoy it."

She winced; he continued, pleasantly. "Despite what people of your age would like to think, your parents' generation did not invent sex on their wedding nights, and engage in it only once, with extreme distaste, for each child in the family."

He was really enjoying her discomfiture; young people were quite amusingly puritanical when it came to their elders. "Nor is your generation the first one to fully explore sex's potential as a recreational, as opposed to procreational, activity, or all of the exciting variations which are possible. Someday you will be my age, and you will be explaining this to someone of your age, who will have just as horrified and nauseated an expression as the one you're wearing now."

His good mood restored, Erik sat back to enjoy the flight.