The Adirondack Mountains, a beautiful lakeside:
Magneto is hiking. He chose this spot for a number of reasons. It’s secluded… hard to find, unless you know what you’re looking for… and peaceful. The mountains… the woods… the fresh air… They remind him that he is but a man and the world is so much bigger than any war he’s waging.
A stag runs past him. Magneto reaches a mountainside. He reaches out with his magnetic power to open a hidden doorway to a complex behind.
It has been a long time since he’s been here. Years. But there is an awakening as he strides the halls. The hidden switches, the flickering lights, the hum of generators springing to life. Here he is remembered.
Earlier:
Elsewhere, a lonely street in a desert landscape:
In the back of a bus sit several obvious-looking mutants. Two normal looking humans sit in the front seats. The man complains he hates being cooped up with them. He can smell them all the way up here. The woman replies they all have burdens to bear for the cause. The driver orders both to shut up. What they do… taking these mutants to the farm… is a great honor. They are shepherds guiding the flock. To complain about their duty is to complain about the will of God. Both look ashamed. And besides this will goes much more easily if they have no idea what awaits them.
What does await them is spiked barbed wire on the street. There’s a blowout and the driver brakes hard. Suddenly, the window is broken and the barbed wire slings itself around his neck. He is pulled out of the window by Magneto who is floating in the air.
The other two try to shoot him. Hold that thought, Magneto smirks and chokes the woman with the wire and has it tear through the man’s stomach. The mutants fear that he is going to kill them. Scornfully, he tells them if they won’t stand up for themselves, get out of the way.
He awakes the man and tells him they have much to discuss.
Present:
The room beyond waits for him to enter. He reminds himself that, while nature might strengthen his spirit, it is just as vital to his efforts to strengthen his mettle, to sharpen the weapons he needs. He hesitates. The war has been taking a toll on him. He’s been kicked and stabbed and shot. He’s had his power ripped away from him, leaving him a shadow of the man he once was. He does not fear pain. But this is going to hurt.
Earlier:
Nightime, the farm:
The guards lie dead, killed by metal blades. Magneto stands in a lab looking at the partially dissected corpse of one Dawson Harris. He takes a data stick out of the computer.
In the corridor, he faces a group of armed Purifiers who accuse him of having killed the innocent. He retorts they have done the same. Luring mutant to this farm to dissect, murder and catalogue them.
One of the Purifiers announces the devil spawned mutantkind. They open fire on him. He manages to control their weapons making them fire on each other.
However, he weakens and one armed Purifier is still left standing, seeing this as a sign of the Lord. While he triumphs, Magneto manages to loosen a rotor blade and uses it to decapitate the Purifier.
Magneto stalks away. Those Purifiers fought because of misguided faith, but his course is clear.
Present:
He downloads a list of names. This is why he fights. Thousands of names. The names of mutants who were taken violently from this world. Each and every one of them a scar to remind him… to fuel him.
And as he adds dozens more to the list, the fire of his anger only grows brighter. He carries the names with him wherever he goes. But this memorial is but the first he’ll raise. The dens of fear and loathing he ravages, the hate pits he leave in ruins, the graves he fills with the enemies of mutantkind. Those too are memorials, reminders to those who stand against him, of how small the world is in the face of his rage.
