After Magneto gave himself up on Genosha, SHIELD takes him to one of their heli-carriers. He is subdued with power dampening shackles. Still, they treat him with extreme caution. After they take him to his cell, Agent Haines apologizes for the lack of amenities and promises more comfort once they have moved him to a permanent location.
Permanent? he repeats. After all he’s done, how could he expect any less? Haines asks. He’s been stalking the world, murdering people in cold blood. And what about the mutants killed every day? Magneto retorts. She realizes how callous that sounds, but the other mutants are not her department. But without him running wild, maybe her team will be tasked with something more important that will help other mutants. She knows he thinks he has been helping his people, but all he has been doing is a distraction. Now she has a job to do. Haines leaves.
Agent Rodriguez stares at him. Of course, Magneto mutters. So does he.
Flashback:
Many years earlier at Xavier’s school:
An uncertain Scott Summers leads Magneto in civilian clothing to Xavier’s office and informs him his guest has arrived. Charles shakes Magnus’ hand and tells him it has been too long. Magneto agrees. A school? Charles has been busy.
Xavier asks Scott to leave. Afterwards, he agrees he has been busy. It seems they’ve both been keeping themselves occupied. Magnus has been in his mind quite some time. He’s seen reports of unexplainable occurrences around the world.
Magneto suggests he not worry. There are more troubling concerns ahead. Has Charles read his mind? Does he know why he is there? He knows about the device, Charles realizes. How?
Magneto replies he has been watching Charles. He has his methods. And this technology he is developing to locate mutants all over the world is unsafe. Something like that could easily be turned against their people. And if he was able to find out about it, so can others.
Present:
Magneto sits in a see-through cell, watched by two guards. One of them, Ayers, taps against the plexiglass and begins insulting Magneto. The other tells him to stop it. He can’t tell him he’s afraid of this guy, Ayers scoffs. He’s not afraid of anything, he replies. But there’s no need to treat him like—
Ayers interrupts, this animal dropped a #*&%$ car on Hickson. The guy can’t walk and eats his damn meals out of a straw. Magneto did that to their friend and colleague. So, yeah, he takes a little joy in seeing him like this. He’s nothing! He’s a tired old man. Just another junkie… aching for a hit of Mutant Growth Hormone! Even without his power dampeners, he’d be near powerless.
Suddenly, with a click, Magneto’s power dampening harness unlocks. Magneto reaches out and the plexiglass separating him from the other side explodes into shards, hitting the guards.
In the meantime, Agent Haines enters the heli-carrier’s bridge and informs Briar Raleigh of Magneto’s capture. She knows, Briar claims. She could feel it the moment he arrived. Haines scoffs and explains she will need to be debriefed before they can let her walk. She knows what she signed up for, Briar smiles. Haines tells her she is lucky. If Magneto had found out she informed SHIELD, he might—
The alarms go off. Tell her again how lucky she is, Briar smiles.
Haines demands information and a full tactical team on the bride. She gives orders to lock Briar away for her own safety.
That was nice of her, Briar remarks to her guards. Won’t do her any good when Magneto crashes the heli-carrier into the ocean, but it was a nice gesture.
Magneto makes his ways to a computer and sees the software is using Cerebro tech. Ah, Charles, he sighs. “Why did you never listen to my warnings?”
Flashback:
Evening at a lake house where Magneto is staying. Is she sure about this? he asks another person. SHIELD developed their own version of Cerebro? They can locate any mutant in the world?
She wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t positive, the woman replies. Although she hesitates to say they developed their own version. It’s been reverse-engineered from intel stolen from Charles Xavier.
The greatest psychic mind on Earth and they successfully spied on him, Magneto muses. It’s the nature of espionage in their world, she points out. If there’s a power at large, they have to develop methods to one-up him. And if there is a “mutant terrorist” about, Magneto retorts, one would assume they develop juicy morsels to lure him. Isn’t that right, Agent Rodriguez?
That is one way of looking at it, she agrees. Or he could consider that SHIELD might have some agents on staff who don’t disagree with what he is doing. He could imagine a girl whose high school boyfriend could fly, who could take her above the clouds where they could be alone, just the two of them. Who landed one day and was beaten to death by a mutant hate group. And if he can imagine that, then he might see the girl growing up to join the FBI and later SHIELD. Now that girl just wants to help him and she’s put herself at great risk to meet with him, to bring him information that might be useful to his cause.
Magneto admits he is convinced for now. But he doesn’t simply want her to bring him information. He needs to witness such audacity firsthand.
Present:
Magneto presses a button and erases all mutants from SHIELD’s databases. Then he puts on his helmet and considers that no grand spectacle is needed, unless he wants to make his point very clear.
Haines and her crew are on the carrier’s outside deck. She asks Rodriguez how this could happen. Rodriguez explains it looks like the power dampeners were deactivated remotely. They’ll worry about who helped him later, Haines decides. First she wants Magneto brought down. He may be a threat but he is surrounded by hundreds of agents. There is no way he is getting off this heli-carrier! That moment, a ship lands hard on the deck.
Magneto decides that, when SHIELD remembers this day, he doesn’t want them to remember a prisoner who slipped away. He wants them to remember he punished them for their transgressions. He wants them to fear his return.
And so, the Marauders burst from the ship. Immediately the Marauders attack the SHIELD agents. Blockbuster hopes Magneto makes it up topside soon. At the rate they are going, there will be nothing left, once he comes up.
Within the Heli-carrier, Briar expresses surprise when Magneto finds her. Did she think he would not? he asks. The vessel is under attack. It is time for them to depart. With a smile, she asks if he got what he came for. He’s destroyed SHIELD’s Cerebro unit and erased every mutant from their data files. She’s surprised he didn’t do more. He informs her, this is a warning shot. For now, SHIELD can still be of use to them. He has no desire to go to war yet.
He uses his magnetism to open them a way outside. Seeing the battle, Briar remarks maybe he should have told the Marauders that. He corrects her this is not war, only a slap on the wrist.
They see Sabretooth about to kill Agent Haines. Magneto levitates him. He figured Sabretooth would be a problem. His healing factor is fighting off his programming. And his murderous tendencies do little to serve their cause. He’s afraid this is farewell. He throws him into a turbine.
Rodriguez helps up Haines, trains a weapon on Magneto and orders him to call off his dogs and surrender. She plays her part well, Magneto thinks to himself. He refuses to surrender. Turning away with Briar, he tells Haines that her overconfidence got the better of her. She believed they could imprison him. She thought herself capable of condemning him for helping his people. But today was simply a lesson, a demonstration of how ill-prepared they are.
He levitates away with the Marauders and Briar and orders SHIELD to leave Genosha to him, for if they darken his threshold once again, the lesson will be far more costly than they can imagine.
