Refusing to Be Principal

"No." Russell answered without hesitation, his voice as casual as if he were commenting on the weather.

"I'm not interested in your Brotherhood, the Xavier Institute, or any organization that expects me to pick a side."

Magneto nodded. There was no disappointment in his gray eyes.

He had heard too many refusals. Disappointment had long since vanished from his vocabulary.

"Straight to the point. I like that."

The old man leaned back and tapped the armrest twice. "But I hope you'll think it over before deciding. Once you've seen enough and lived through enough, you may find that sometimes you choose a side for yourself, not for anyone else."

He leaned forward, set both hands on the table, and met Russell's eyes.

"You know how this world treats mutants. Laboratories, operating tables, collars, and those poor souls brainwashed into Hounds—you've experienced or heard of all of it.

"Charles says he understands you, but he doesn't." Magneto's voice dropped, as though he were speaking of something he had turned over in his mind countless times.

"He's never been locked in a cage. He's never been treated as a test subject. He's never dug through garbage for food.

"He thinks mutants can have a future of peaceful coexistence, of sitting down to negotiate, of waiting for humans to discover their conscience."

He paused. When he spoke again, his voice was low enough for only Russell to hear. "But I've lived it, and so have you. We both know what humans are like.

"Treat them kindly, and they think you're weak and come after you. Treat them harshly, and they call you frightening, shut you out, and brand you a freak.

"You'll never make them love you. But you can make them fear you—enough that they won't dare strap you to an operating table again, enough that they'll cross the street when they see you coming."

Russell watched Magneto.

As the old man spoke, there was something in his eyes. Not anger. Not hatred. Something deeper, colder, harder. A blade that had grown over a wound reopened too many times.

Russell understood. Magneto's parents had died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. His wife and daughter had died in a capture operation involving humans.

His entire life was a history of persecution written in blood and tears. The fact that he hadn't become a madman who killed everyone he met was a testament to his willpower.

"What do you want me to do?" Russell raised an eyebrow. "Help you build a nation for mutants?"

"Yes." Magneto's answer came without hesitation, sharp as a bullet leaving the barrel.

"Then do you understand me?" Russell asked. "Can you be sure we want the same thing?"

Magneto looked at Russell and fell silent for a few seconds.

He had met too many young people: powerful ones and powerless ones, those who had sought him out and those he had invited.

But Russell was different. There was no desperate hunger for approval in the young man's eyes, nor the guarded look of someone wounded by the world.

He was like a still lake with no visible bottom. Whatever you threw in would sink without so much as a splash.

"I understand your anger and your distrust. I understand what it feels like to think the whole world is against you."

Magneto slipped his hands into his pockets, as relaxed as if he were talking to an old friend. "But honestly, I don't know what you want.

"Charles thinks you want a home. I think you want power. Maybe we're both wrong.

"Maybe all you want is freedom—no one lecturing you, no one trying to change you, no one dictating your choices."

Russell picked up his lukewarm coffee and took a sip. Bitterness spread across his tongue. He frowned and put the cup down.

"You're half right."

"Which half?"

"The freedom part." Russell tapped a steady rhythm on the table. "But you don't understand what freedom means to me. You want mutants to rule the world. I want everyone to leave me alone."

Magneto blinked, then laughed.

"Leave you alone," he repeated. "You stay in a luxury hotel, send two young women out to hand out money every day, and expect everyone to leave you alone?"

"That was the idea. But like you said, sometimes you want peace and someone else doesn't. Going somewhere remote won't help."

Magneto understood what Russell meant. "Then why don't you strike first?"

But as soon as the words left his mouth, he remembered the intelligence Raven had gathered about the Ultimate Sentinel and Hounds developed by the American military to deal with mutants. He changed tack.

"One person's strength is limited. Taking on a country backed by extraordinary power isn't realistic."

"Isn't it?"

Russell manipulated molecules until his palm grew hot, warming his coffee. "I'd say that just means you aren't strong enough. Become powerful enough to drive your enemies to despair, and other people will destroy them for you without your lifting a finger."

Magneto looked at him and nodded. "I know someone named Jean Grey. She's one of the X-Men now. If she unleashed the full force of her power, she could destroy a nation in no time.

"And Charles, he... Forget it."

Just then, another voice cut in.

"Erik, are you talking about me behind my back again?"

A waitress in a café apron had appeared beside their table, carrying a steaming cup of coffee.

She was a white woman in her early twenties, with brown hair tied in a ponytail and a practiced, professional smile.

But something beneath that smile was off. Her eyes held a gentle wisdom that didn't belong to someone her age.

"Charles. I knew you'd be watching from the shadows."

Magneto's expression didn't change, but he withdrew his hand from the table and rested it on his knee.

"I wasn't speaking ill of you. I was stating a fact. If you'd set aside your needless mercy, the situation for mutants could improve in an instant.

"Humanity might even... disappear from the Earth."

The waitress—or rather, the mouthpiece controlled by Professor X—set the fresh coffee in front of Russell, then sat across from Magneto.

"Your views are too extreme. I can't agree with them."

Her bearing shifted from a young woman's awkwardness to an old man's composure. She straightened her back and folded her hands on the table.

"You said I've never been locked in a cage, treated as a test subject, or dug through garbage for food."

Professor X spoke through the woman's mouth, his tone gentle but faintly weary. "All of that is true. It doesn't mean I don't understand.

"Erik, you don't have to experience something to understand it. You don't need to be stabbed to know a knife hurts."

Magneto scoffed. "There you go again, Charles, lecturing me. You always dress up your weakness in pretty, useless arguments."

"Weakness?" Professor X's tone remained even, but a sharp glint flashed through the woman's eyes. "Erik, you know I'm not weak. You simply disagree with my methods."

"Your methods?" Magneto's voice turned cold. "Your method is to wait. Wait for humans to develop a conscience, wait for governments to change their policies, wait for the next generation to be kinder than this one.

"You've waited your whole life. What has it brought you? The Sentinel Program. The Hound Project. Mutants registered, imprisoned, and studied as biological weapons."

"And you?" Professor X shot back. "Your method is to kill. Kill until humans are afraid. Kill until mutants reign supreme.

"You've killed your whole life. What has that brought you? More hatred, more fear, more Sentinels.

"For every human you kill, ten more mutant hunters are trained. Your violence hasn't solved the problem. It only creates new ones."

"At least I'm doing something." Magneto refused to give an inch to his old friend. "You just sit in your wheelchair and wait for someone else to act."

Professor X fell silent for a few seconds.

The woman's eyes rested on Magneto. In them were exhaustion, helplessness, and a sorrow that stretched back decades.

Russell listened to the two opposing voices of mutantkind argue and dug a finger into his ear.

Great. The flies are buzzing in my ear again.

"Let's leave that aside." Professor X turned to Russell. "My boy, I came for the same reason as Erik: to invite you to the Xavier Institute. But I can make you a promise he can't."

"What promise?" Russell's curiosity stirred.

"When you graduate, the Xavier Institute will be yours." Professor X spoke calmly, as if the decision were already made.

"I'll retire and leave you the position of principal. Every resource, every connection, every bit of experience and every relationship the X-Men have built over decades—it will all be yours."

In short, Professor X was offering Russell his own place.

Magneto whipped around to look at the woman.

His expression held steady, but his eyes betrayed him. Genuine shock flashed through those gray irises.

"Charles, this is the first time I've heard you say anything like that." Magneto rubbed his fingers together. "You've only known him a few days, haven't you?"

"That's enough." Professor X's voice was firm. "I'll also resolve this boy's conflict with the military and the government. The President will hear me out."

Russell looked at the two old men—one speaking to him through a stranger's mouth, the other across from him, fingers gripping the brim of his hat.

They were competing not for profit or territory, but for him.

"Professor." Russell didn't speak loudly, but the air in the room went still.

"You said the Xavier Institute would be mine after I graduate. What if I lead the X-Men to attack military laboratories? What if I rescue the mutants imprisoned there? What if I blow up the Sentinel Program's research center?"

Professor X's expression tightened for a moment, then relaxed.

"If you believe it's necessary when the time comes, I won't stop you."

Magneto gave a brief scoff. "You've changed, Charles. You never would have said that before."

"I haven't changed, Erik."

Magneto turned back to Russell. Seeing how highly his old friend valued the young man, he realized he might have underestimated him.

Was Russell an Omega Mutant on Jean's level?

He could think of no other reason for Charles to go this far, and the Brotherhood of Mutants had long yearned for an Omega Mutant.

"Charles, if you can step down, so can I." He placed his hat on the table, braced both hands against it, and fixed his gray eyes on Russell.

"Join the Brotherhood, and you can take my place now. Not someday. Now.

"Every member and every resource of the Brotherhood will be yours, so long as you can lead mutants into the future."

Russell regarded them quietly, unmoved by offers that would have driven countless mutants wild.

"Are you both finished?" Russell asked calmly.

Magneto and Professor X fell silent together. For the first time, a young man had made them both feel nervous and under pressure.

His utter lack of desire gave them nothing to work with.

Russell leaned back and tapped the armrest twice.

"I'm not interested in either of your positions. I'm not interested in the Xavier Institute or the Brotherhood. There's only one thing I care about—"

Both men found their attention drawn to him.

Russell raised his right hand and spread his fingers.

Above his palm, atoms in the air began to gather.

Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms were pulled from every direction by an unseen force and woven together.

Seconds later, a crisp hundred-dollar bill appeared in his palm, faintly fluorescent in the sunlight.

Magneto's and Professor X's pupils contracted. Both were stunned by the power Russell had just displayed.

Magneto especially. His own ability was electromagnetic control, making him more sensitive to changes in the surrounding air.

It only strengthened his conviction.

Russell was an Omega Mutant, and there was far more to his power than he had shown in his fights with Wolverine and Cyclops.

"Getting stronger." Russell's casual expression gave way to something more serious. "That's what I care about.

"If you truly want me to join your organizations, there's one condition you'll have to meet."

"What condition?" Magneto and Professor X asked almost in unison.

"Fight me." Russell set the Franklin bill on the table and pushed it toward them.

"You two, and the mutants under you. I need to fight. I need to see different abilities.

"Magneto's Magnetic Field Manipulation, Professor X's Telepathy, Storm's Weather Control... Spar with me until I'm satisfied, and I might consider joining."

Fight?!

Professor X and Magneto exchanged a glance. Neither quite understood what the man was thinking.

Was this really about getting stronger?

Fighting wasn't the only way for mutants to develop their powers.

"Of course, whether I join or not, I won't ask you to do it for free. I can pay you plenty of cash. Gold, if you prefer."

Russell watched them think it over and tapped his forehead. "Well?"

"Agreed," Professor X answered first. "But I have a condition too. No mass killing, especially of military or government personnel."

"No." Russell shook his head. "They've hunted me twice already. The most I'll promise is that I won't visit any nearby military bases for a while. After that, no guarantees..."

I crossed into another world, for fuck's sake. If I don't fight back when they hunt me, what was the point?

I can't even enjoy getting stronger with that hanging over me.

He had no reason to spar with the X-Men only to shackle himself.

Once his Mental Defense reached level four and made him immune to Professor X, the X-Men would cooperate whether they wanted to or not.

There was another reason he wanted the X-Men and the Brotherhood as sparring partners: the X-Factor.

He needed to collect more X-Factor gene sequences.