Pacem Para Bellum

Posted on Mon May 29th, 2023 @ 2:42pm by Charles Xavier & Erik Magnus Lehnsherr
Edited on on Wed Oct 18th, 2023 @ 7:30pm

1,248 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Episode 2: Northern X-Posure
Location: New York Harbor
Timeline: August 11th, 1990

Dozens of mutants huddled together in a line that ranged from the end of the pier all the way back to the street. Chain-link fencing held back crowds of protesters that held signs and spat epithets at the mutants who were slowly making their way down the expatriation line toward freedom.

For everyone who made this trek, there was no coming back. They were renouncing their citizenship in exchange for a one-way ticket to Asteroid M. For many of them, there was nothing left that held them. Well, nothing good.

Plenty of bad memories and trauma were compelling these humble souls into the unknown in hopes of a better life. The sight of the Statue of Liberty and nearby Ellis Island seemed rather ironic. Or at least that was Professor Xavier's contribution to the maelstrom of fear and loathing that had taken over the area. It was cruel irony that sent mutants fleeing from the Land of the Free out of persecution and fear for their very futures.

A familiar resonating hum filled Xavier's ears as he kept his place in line. The shadow cast from overhead glimmered from faint flickers as sunlight refracted around a fluctuating electromagnetic field.

"Hello, Charles," said the haughty voice of Magneto who levitated several meters overhead. "Come to snatch a few souls from the gates of Heaven, have you?"

"No, old friend," the Professor said with a tinge of ire, though he was too classy to express more of it. "I have come to talk and not to entice people to throw their lives away with empty promises of grandeur."

~Not like you did at our last meeting~ the Professor thought. It was unlikely that Magneto heard him even at this range due to the psionic shielding afforded by his helmet, but honesty was honesty.

"Oh, Charles, how petty. I had thought better of you," Magneto said.

"Magnus, a word in private." Xavier would not take his rival's bait.

"So your students can ambush me once more?" Magneto let out a terse chuckle. "Perhaps not."

The Professor closed his eyes and sighed. "I have come alone, Magnus. Please. It is important."

"Ah, but you are never really alone, are you, Charles?" Magneto tapped an armored knuckle from his gauntlet against his helmet and chuckled. "How many of these poor souls could you turn against me to use as mutant shields to make good your escape? Ten? Twenty, I wonder?"

"Magnus!"

"Thirty, then?" Magneto's brow spiked upward inside his helmet. "And without breaking a sweat."

"Did you find them, Magnus?" The question from Professor Xavier was plain and honest. Maybe even a touch of pleading.

For Magneto, there was no ambiguity in the question. He know exactly whom the Professor meant. "I tore that facility apart from top to bottom," Magneto said. "If I had discovered either of my children within those walls, then I would have launched a crusade against the Canadian government with the vengeance only a father can mete out."

"The X-Men recovered one of their own," Xavier reported. "Iceman."

"Truly?" For the first time since their conversation began, Magneto gave Xavier his undivided attention. "Come."

Hovering down to the end of the pier, Magneto settled himself onto the orbital platform that would be raised above the Earth to Asteroid M and Avalon beyond. "We can speak here."

As Xavier followed, he closed his eyes and surrounded himself with a psionic aura that would amplify the shroud he had already emitted about himself. His mutant advocacy work could explain his presence here, but it would be a more difficult conversation to explain the private meeting. "He doesn't remember, Magnus." The statement was one Xavier had held back until he had gained entry. "Not a thing. Not even as much as Cyclops."

"Tell me that you scoured your student's mind," Magneto said, his back turned to Xavier. "Tell me that you left no stone unturned. Tell me you searched out every corner and boundary of his memory until you found my children."

"Our children," Xavier corrected. "The mind is a delicate thing. Pushing too hard or too deep could break him permanently and then we'd lose--"

Magneto rose back up into the air. "You have lost everything already," he said. "You just don't see it yet. One by one, your students will fall away, and for what? To protect those who would trap us like rats." Spinning around, he looked at Xavier. "Join me, Charles. You are already here. Go all the way. With you on our side, we would be unstoppable!"

Shaking his head, Xavier's face turned morose. "I have always been on your side, old friend. It is you who abandoned mine."

"Is that why your team needed me to save them?" Magneto challenged. "As I recall, your students were pinned down by enemy fire until my Brotherhood launched our attack."

"You nearly killed them," Xavier said, "before, with the Blackbird. But they chose to go in any way to save their friends and even strangers. That is why I have hope. Not even you, in all your hatred, can squash the dream of peace, not once its flame has taken hold in the hearts of those who have lived their lives without it."

"Tell that to the human governments," Magneto said. "The Canadians want blood for what I did, but their secrets were uncovered and now the Americans are fighting over how to respond to atrocities when they aren't the ones to commit them." A smirk came over his face. "War is coming, Xavier. Si vis pacem, para bellum."

"Fac fortia et patere," Xavier retorted.

If you want peace, then prepare for war. Do brave deeds and endure. Two contrasting worldviews. If only they could ever be reconciled.

Magneto laughed viciously. "We shall see." His head turned askance as he asked a probing question. "The news establishments are claiming anonymous tipsters for a number of incriminating evidence against recent government and corporate experimentation on mutants. Would you know anything about that?"

Rather than answer, Xavier just smiled.

"When agents of evil abducted our mutant brothers and kill them in sadistic ways, I hunted them down and killed them to the last man," Magneto said. "You exposed them to a corrupt system that is more concerned with fighting itself than saving even humans, much less mutants." Raising his hands and his voice, he addressed those who were already vouched for and ready to ascend to the mutant haven in orbit. "Let this truth ring in your years in times to come! Those who fight for peace are laying their lives down for folly! There is no peace! There is only war! And this I swear, my brothers, that I shall lead you to victory!"

For someone who wasn't a telepath, Erik had a flair for the dramatic that could manipulate a crowd as surely as any mind control. Charles shook his head as he wheeled his chair away from the assembly and back down the pier. This had been a waste of time, but with so many developments of late yet no solid leads to follow, he owed it to everyone to make the attempt. All he had earned was a migraine from blanking out the vision of so many people at once while he made his egress.

What if Magneto had recovered any of the others and kept them as hostages? Well, the Professor thought to himself, then Magnus would come to know the true meaning of war.

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