They needed no tactics, no formation. Shielded by an immunity to time that seemed to place them on another plane entirely, they pressed forward step by step.
Pietro gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on his twin blades.
The last few battered steel plates rose to hover beside Magneto.
The air in the hall grew unbearably thick.
The Tactical Team Captain was only three steps from Magneto.
He raised his Pruning Baton high, aiming it at the old man's chest. The merciless judgment was about to fall.
The orange glow at its tip was less than twenty centimeters from Magneto's chest.
The force of erasure was so strong that the fabric over the old man's chest had begun to turn insubstantial.
At that critical instant,
a harsh grinding of gears came from deep within the hall, where a heavy alloy door led to the Core Laboratory three thousand meters underground.
The door did not open all the way.
It slid inward just enough to leave a gap for one person to squeeze through sideways.
A foot in an ordinary black leather shoe crossed the threshold.
There was no deafening explosion of energy, no dazzling light tearing space apart.
Lynn had not even taken a second step from the stairwell beyond the door.
As the toe of his shoe came down, he appeared out of thin air on the handmade Italian leather sofa in the center of the hall.
He sat quietly beside Magneto.
He wore a freshly changed white coat, its hem crisp and smooth.
His signature plain-glass spectacles rested on his nose. Behind the lenses, his gaze was as still as dead water.
He folded his hands loosely before his knees.
His right sleeve was rolled up, exposing his now inhuman body.
His skin was a chaotic gray-white,