The Exhausted Professor X

Professor X's words sounded noble enough.

His tone, his choice of words—it was like listening to a priest preach in church. Every word was right, but every word floated somewhere above the clouds, never touching the ground.

Russell leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window, his bare feet on the floor. The corner of his mouth slowly curved upward.

It was not a smile. It was something colder.

If Professor X insisted on reasoning with him, Russell would give him a proper argument.

"You know what I've suffered?" His voice was soft, but every word cut like a knife. "Have you experienced it?"

Professor X said nothing.

"Do you know what it feels like to be strapped to an operating table—your limbs locked down, a collar around your neck, unable even to turn your head?

"You watch people in white coats walk toward you. You watch scalpels glint beneath the surgical lights. You watch them cut open your skin, peel back your muscles, expose your bones to the air.

"You feel every cut, every stitch, every hollowing sensation when they take something out of you."

He paused.

"Have you ever been treated like an animal?"

Silence filled the old man's mind.

Professor X's consciousness hovered outside Russell's mental barrier, like a man standing before a high wall, wanting to knock but not daring to.

"I'm sorry, child." At last, his voice returned, lower and heavier than before.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you. But isn't it precisely because of past suffering that we should look toward a better future?

"I promise that the people who harmed Mutants will receive the punishment they deserve. The government will accept Mutants in the end. Humans and Mutants will live together in peace."

Russell could tell Professor X meant it.

It was not an act. He was a kind old man who sincerely wanted to help a young man he believed had lost his way. That sincerity only made it sadder.

Russell would sooner believe he was the Ancestral Dragon than trust the U.S. Government.

America had no tears to spare. In a world where everyone hated Mutants, you either became the food on the table or the one eating it.

He did not believe that Professor X, with the most powerful mind on Earth, was unaware of the U.S. Government's dirty dealings.

Perhaps he knew but could never make up his mind, clinging to hope for people who deserved no mercy.

Or perhaps he had always stood alongside those who profited from others' suffering. Perhaps that was why he had abandoned the means of achieving real peace and hoped to beg for it through endless concessions.

"Professor X," Russell continued, "when I first met you, I respected you. I thought you founded the X-Men because you wanted to change humanity's mistaken view of Mutants."

"And now?" Charles sounded faintly urgent.

"Now I think I was naive. I found out that you were the one who publicly introduced the name 'Mutants' to the media decades ago—a name dripping with hostility.

"In a sense, those words of yours dragged everyone on Earth whose X-Factor had manifested into a storm that has never ended."

Russell did not press him, but there was no disputing the fact that the name had come from Professor X's own mouth.

Professor X had weathered countless storms, yet he fell into thought. Truthfully, he had regretted it himself.

He had not known that drawing a distinction between humans and Mutants would bring decades of harm to the group.

He could not even explain why he had said it in front of so many reporters. It was almost as though some unseen force had guided him.

Russell turned toward the window and looked out over Manhattan. Neon lights blurred in the night mist like colors bleeding across a wet painting.

"Suffering is suffering. What happened, happened. You can't wipe it away with a few words.

"You talk about 'a better future'—on what grounds? What have you been through that gives you the right to say that to me? Have you ever felt the pain of Mutants at the bottom?"

Professor X considered the question but still did not answer.

Russell answered for him.

"You were born into a wealthy family. You lived in a big house and received the best education. The greatest misfortune of your life was an accident that took away your ability to walk and put you in a wheelchair.

"But even then, you still had wealth and status beyond anything ordinary people could imagine. Have you seen real darkness? Have you ever been locked in a cage?

"Have you ever been treated as a test subject? As material they could use up whenever they pleased? As 'Number 47,' someone who didn't even deserve a name?"

Silence. A longer silence this time.

"You haven't." Anger swelled in Russell's chest, and once he started, he could not stop. "That's why you don't understand. You don't understand why so many people would rather follow Magneto than you.

"All those principles you preach are too far removed from their lives. They've gone hungry, slept in sewers, been chased down and beaten like dogs. You tell them about 'a better future' when they don't even know where tomorrow's dinner is coming from?"

He drew a deep breath.

"If you haven't suffered what someone else has, don't lecture them about being good. Keep using morality to pressure people, and it'll come back on you. Professor X, some reckoning is bound to catch up with you."

The words were harsh.

Russell did not regret them.

He did not hate Professor X to the bone. Perhaps the old man truly wanted what was best for Mutants, but his kindness came from above. It was charity, detached from reality.

It was like standing safely on shore and telling a drowning person, "Be strong."

Professor X's upbringing had shaped who he was.

He had never seen true evil, so he believed people were good at heart. He had never been betrayed, so he believed compromise worked. He had never been driven to the brink, so he believed everything could be talked through.

Reality was not like that.

Magneto knew what reality was like. He had been imprisoned in a concentration camp as a child and had watched his family die in the gas chambers.

He knew how cruel humans could be to Mutants because he had seen it. That was why he never compromised.

He believed only one thing: peace was not granted to those who asked for it. It had to be fought for.

That was why Magneto and Professor X had parted ways. One viewed the world from the clouds; the other had crawled out of the mud.

Different vantage points led to different conclusions.

And Russell was the one who had crawled out of the mud.

He had been cut open on an operating table.

He had been locked in a cage and treated like a dog. He knew what this world meant for Mutants. He had not learned it from a book, nor from some all-knowing perspective as a traveler from another world. He had read it in the scars that had healed across his own body.

"All right." Professor X's voice finally returned, carrying a weariness Russell had never heard before. "If that's how you feel, child, then I'll have to come speak with you in person."

His consciousness withdrew from outside Russell's mental barrier like an ebbing tide, slow and unstoppable.

Russell stood at the window, gazing out at Manhattan. At last, his mind was quiet.

"Speak in person," he repeated, then laughed.

For all the sharpness of his words, he had held back his harshest arguments—such as his thoughts on Professor X's self-righteousness.

If Professor X came back, Russell would have to ask him why he never dared take on the hypocritical U.S. Government. Was it because the president's name might as well be X?

He glanced around the tidied room. Felicity turned over on the sofa and mumbled something in her sleep.

Russell turned and headed for the Training Room. He could not waste a second.

Whether he faced the X-Men, the Avengers, or the corrupt nation behind Hound, only strength of his own would let him do as he pleased.

If he ever grew as powerful as Doctor Manhattan or Apocalypse, he could say America should not exist, and the name would vanish.

His path to greater strength continued.

"Professor, they're here." Storm's warning drew Charles out of his thoughts of Russell's scathing words.

"Charles, you came after all." Atop the towering Statue of Liberty, the man who could make the whole world tremble spread his arms with easy grace and slowly descended.

Charles looked at his old friend. Weariness flickered in his perceptive eyes.

He had barely finished dealing with the younger one. Now he had to face the older one, who was even more radical. Neither of them gave him a moment's peace.

Liberty Island.

The deepest darkness before dawn shrouded the Statue of Liberty. Its torch swayed faintly in the night wind.

The tourists had long since been evacuated. Only two groups remained, facing each other beneath the statue's pedestal.

Magneto stood at the front with his hands behind his back, his silver-white hair streaming in the wind.

Behind him stood Mystique, Juggernaut, Toad, and a dozen or so core members of the Brotherhood of Mutants.

Before them, the enormous Mutant Transformation Device was already running. Its core reactor gave off a low hum, like a heart about to wake.

"Erik." Professor X's voice came through the speaker on his wheelchair, calm but edged with suppressed urgency. "Stop. Do you know what you're doing?"

Magneto looked at him, the corner of his mouth curving upward. "What am I doing? I'm saving all Mutants."

He raised a hand, and the iron railing around the pedestal began to tremble. "Charles, you're always talking about peace, coexistence, understanding. But have you considered this? If everyone were a Mutant, there would be no need for peace."

"That isn't peace." Professor X shook his head. "It's a forced choice. You're taking away their right to choose."

"They made their choice." Magneto's voice turned cold. "They chose to put us in cages, to cut our bodies apart in laboratories, to answer our cries for help with bullets.

"They chose, Charles. I'm merely giving them an answer."

Professor X was about to respond when a shrill alarm erupted from the device behind them.

Everyone turned at once.

Senator Kelly lay on the platform beneath the device, his body changing in a horrifying way. His skin melted, his bones rearranged themselves, and his muscles swelled before wasting away.

His eyes were wide open, his mouth agape, but no sound came out.

This was beyond pain—pain, at least, was proof of life. He was collapsing from within, like an old house hollowed out by termites that could no longer stand.

Mystique took a step back. She had seen plenty of deaths, but this slow, irreversible genetic collapse happening before her eyes made her stomach churn.

Magneto's face betrayed nothing, but he released his grip on the railing.

"It failed," he said evenly, as though stating a fact that had nothing to do with him.

Deep down, he was bitterly unwilling to accept it. Professor X had told him long ago that the Mutant Transformation Device had serious flaws and could never turn humans into genuine Mutants.

"Erik..." A note of pity entered Professor X's voice.

"I said it failed." Magneto turned and swept his gaze over the Brotherhood members behind him. "The plan is canceled. Withdraw."

Juggernaut froze. "Boss, we—"

"Withdraw." Magneto repeated the order, his tone cold enough to brook no argument.

"Erik, there's a video going viral online. I think you'll find it interesting." Mystique handed him a tablet.

"Oh?"

A video very much to Magneto's liking played on the screen. He watched a young man walk barefoot across broken glass, watched bullets stop in front of him and turn back, watched him cut through every opponent in his path. His eyes lit up.

"So you've seen it?" Professor X asked.

"I have. Very impressive. From the sound of it, you've already met this young man—and come off worse for it."

The video showed Wolverine and Cyclops getting battered. It was an easy conclusion for Magneto to draw.

"I've told you before, not every Mutant wants to support your ideals. I see a little of my younger self in this child."

There was an emotion in his voice that was hard to pin down. It was neither admiration nor wariness, but something more complicated, like what a man felt when he saw his younger self in a mirror.

"His potential exceeds yours," Professor X stated calmly.

"Even I can't easily penetrate his mental barrier."

Magneto slowly turned to look at his old friend. "What are you trying to say, Charles?"

Professor X was silent for a few seconds. "I'm saying he doesn't need you. He doesn't even need me. He's enough on his own. Don't disturb him."

Magneto smiled without warmth. "You're afraid."

"I'm concerned."

"About what? That he'll become another me?" Magneto turned back to the screen.

"Charles, you're always like this. You see a powerful Mutant and want to bring him into your school, teach him your principles, shape him into what you want.

"But the world doesn't revolve around you. Not everyone wants to be your student."

After closing the video, Magneto's smile deepened.

"I'm going to meet him. Anyone who earns this much attention and praise from you interests me."

"No." Professor X answered so quickly that he surprised even himself.

"You can't stop me." Magneto tapped the helmet on his head. "And you can't stop him."

"Charles, you're always talking about peace, coexistence, understanding. But you know what? Some people don't need to be understood. They need to be feared."

He took one last look at the mass of flesh on the platform, no longer recognizable as human, then turned toward the sea.

"We're leaving."

Iron gathered beneath his feet to form a floating bridge, carrying him toward the opposite shore.

Mystique followed. As she passed Professor X, she stopped for a moment. "Charles."

"Raven."

"You won this time," she said softly, then walked away without looking back.

Professor X watched the Brotherhood members disappear one by one into the night and let out a long breath.

He turned toward the device, now silent, and the body on the platform that Jean was covering with a white sheet.

"He isn't saving them," Professor X murmured, to no one in particular. "He's just consumed by hate."

Behind him, Storm supported Cyclops by the shoulder while Wolverine stood nearby with a cigar between his teeth. No one spoke. Only the wind and waves could be heard on Liberty Island.

"Pajama Baby, I'll say it again. I won't let you go looking for Russell. He's... dangerous."

Elsewhere, Iron Man blocked Spider-Man's path.