Magneto and Professor X

This was a military base. The buildings visible on the surface were unremarkable, but the underground scale was several times larger than above ground, as if it had been converted from a missile silo.

At the center of the former launch site, a massive glass room hung suspended in midair, with no metal within a hundred meters of it.

Below the glass room was installed a device resembling a sonic emitter. This device could generate a special force field that, while unable to completely suppress Magneto's power, could significantly weaken it.

Otherwise, relying on just a glass room to trap Magneto would hardly be so easy.

The provider of this device was none other than Magneto's old friend, Professor X.

A passageway opened at that moment, slowly connecting to the glass room. Professor X wheeled himself in on his chair, arriving before Magneto.

"Erik, I've come to see you."

"You know you're not welcome here, Charles." Magneto didn't lift his head, fiddling with the chess pieces in his hand—made of glass, of course.

"But I came anyway." Professor X reached the opposite side of Magneto.

Fiddling with the pieces, Magneto suddenly looked up. "Do you wake up in the middle of the night, afraid that the laws will unjustly harm you or your descendants?"

"Of course I do." Professor X glanced at Magneto and nodded.

"Then what do you do after you wake up?" Magneto pressed on.

"I pity the ignorant, and those..." Professor X paused, deliberately glancing at Magneto. "...those who provoke."

"Bang!" Magneto dropped his chess piece, locking eyes with Professor X.

"I really don't know why you're here."

"You know perfectly well. I've come to show you hope." Professor X shifted his gaze past the glass room to Lu Yifang, who was leaning against the wall in a daze.

"Yifang, fine, he might be. His ability is truly perfect, powerful, captivating. Even without tapping into his full potential, he's already reached this level. This is a Level 5 mutant." Magneto stared at Lu Yifang, his eyes full of admiration.

"I think Yifang should be taught by me. Only I can truly make him what he can be."

"You know that's impossible. You would only destroy him."

"Destroy him? It's you who would destroy him." Magneto grew agitated at this.

"You're a docile sheep, and you can only raise more sheep. Look at Jean Grey—what have you done? You turned a Level 5 mutant into a little girl who only knows how to play house at school. Do you want to do it again?"

This was the sharpest point of conflict between Magneto and Professor X. Professor X wanted to build a bridge between mutants and ordinary humans. But in Magneto's view, endless dialogue and goodwill wouldn't secure mutants' legal rights—it would only invite more discrimination. At times like this, only by standing up and fighting, by making them feel pain and feel your power, would they be patient enough to talk.

"Jean's ability has a flaw. She can't control her power like Yifang can. She brings only destruction, not hope." Professor X growled at this.

"Charles, we need to show our claws and teeth, let those bastards know our strength, so they never dare offend us again." Magneto pressed on, unwilling to give up.

"So you caused the Liberty Island incident. You nearly ruined everything. Is that what you wanted?"

"I..." Faced with Professor X hitting the nail on the head, Magneto faltered, his expression dimming.

"I admit, that machine was a mistake." Stubborn as Old Magneto was, he finally relented. His philosophy was to secure legal rights for mutants, even to gradually replace humans and complete humanity's leap in evolution.

But killing everyone in New York would only turn the conflict between mutants and ordinary humans into an endless war of mutual destruction. That wasn't what Old Magneto wanted.

"What's the situation outside now?" Magneto looked up at Professor X.

"Progress is decent. After Mystique escaped from Liberty Island, she disguised herself as Senator Kelly and publicly opposed the Mutant Registration Act. Combined with your radical actions on Liberty Island, the government is now more cautious about the bill. It's been temporarily shelved." Professor X explained.

"Oh, that's the best news I've heard since I entered this prison."

"Erik, I don't like your methods, but I have to admit, sometimes they're quite effective." Professor X hesitated before saying this to Magneto.

"But you put me in this damn place and helped them perfect the method to imprison me." Magneto toyed with a chess piece, looking at Professor X with a wry expression.

"Erik, I had no choice. I needed to give them an explanation, to let them know that mutants are dissatisfied, not declaring war! They won't kill you easily, because only you can control the Brotherhood's mutants and keep them from acting recklessly." Professor X explained helplessly.

"Come on, Charles, you don't need to explain. You and I both know I don't blame you." Magneto dropped the piece, his expression calm.

He understood his position and Professor X's well. Among mutants, someone needed to play the good cop, just as someone needed to play the bad cop—him.

"Charles, do you think mutants really have a future?" After a moment of silence, Magneto's face suddenly darkened, making him look like a frail old man, not the fearsome Magneto.

Magneto was a true fighter. He had struggled for mutant rights for over half a century, but when he looked back, he found he was still stuck in place, not a single step closer to his ideal.

And though he didn't know the tragic future of mutants like Lu Yifang did, based on his half-century of experience, he could infer that the future wasn't bright.

Old Magneto was still fighting, and he wouldn't stop until death. But Old Magneto was truly despairing. This despair sometimes made him want to start a real war, to let mutants and ordinary humans destroy each other completely.

"Erik, I don't know if I'll ever see real hope, but I will never stop searching and trying. I hope you won't either." With that, Professor X wheeled himself out of the glass room.