"I'm back!" Polaris called as she pushed open the door, only to find Charles sitting alone in the office, looking at her with a complicated expression.
"What's wrong, Professor? Where's Erik?"
"He went out for a meeting," Charles said without blinking. "You know, two not-so-friendly countries recently scheduled routine visits. He had to go deal with them."
Polaris's expression immediately darkened, though clearly not because of Erik. She snorted. "Now they remember they want to visit us? When they were smearing Magneto and Mutants all over the internet, they sure didn't remember they might one day want diplomatic relations with us, huh?"
"Your father said that didn't count as smearing," Charles said helplessly. "After all, he really did cause quite a stir back then."
"A stir big enough to change where he was born? To change his race? Or enough to rewrite history so he never entered a concentration camp and never fought those damned fascists?!"
"Calm down, Lorna." Charles sighed. "We're not children anymore. Going to extremes won't do anyone any good. If they want to come, let them come. We'll just receive them as ordinary foreign guests."
Polaris was clearly still unhappy. She sat down with her arms crossed, the corners of her mouth drooping as though two lead weights hung from them.
"There's one more thing I wanted to discuss with you." Charles looked troubled. "I know this may sound a little shocking, but... after Captain America's hundredth birthday, we'll begin preparing to move Earth..."
Amid Polaris's stunned expression, Charles briefly explained the Earth's Departure plan that China had begun preparing many years ago.
The plan was actually simple in principle. When the Iron God first appeared, it truly shocked the entire world, and naturally, the Eastern Great Nation was the most shocked of all.
China had