Her Plans are taking Form (Revised)

General (POV)

The door to the ward clicked shut behind them, the sterile hallway stretching ahead in oppressive quiet. Erik spoke first, his voice low and sharp. "Charles, do you believe her story? And more importantly, do you really think it's wise to bring her into this fight against Shaw?"

Charles exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose as if trying to massage away the weight of the world. His gaze lingered on the closed door, as though he could sense Sarah's enigmatic presence on the other side. "The story of her being experimented on? Highly plausible. She claims to be human, though. Perhaps it's denial—or something else entirely," he admitted, his brow furrowing. "What's clear is that her past was harrowing. If even half of what she said is true, she's suffered in ways I can scarcely imagine."

He paused, his jaw tightening before he continued. "As for joining us… I don't know. Her mind is—" Charles hesitated, frustration flickering across his face. "It's impenetrable. Not resistant, just… blocked. Like trying to listen to a symphony when the violin's strings have been ripped away. It unsettles me, Erik."

Erik's expression darkened, his jaw tightening. "So, the great Professor Xavier proposes sanctuary," he said, his tone laced with dry skepticism. "A young woman—possibly a mutant—possessing remarkable abilities and intellect. Left unchecked, she's a walking beacon for trouble. If the wrong people catch wind of her…" He left the thought hanging ominously.

Charles met his gaze with unwavering resolve. "That's precisely why I brought her here. To protect her. To guide her. If nothing else, she deserves a chance to live without fear."

"And Shaw?" Erik pressed, his skepticism sharpening. "You're really going to drag her into that storm? Do you think she can handle it?"

"She's barely managing her powers as it is!" Charles snapped, his calm demeanor cracking. "She's not ready."

"She just escaped, Charles. She's still recuperating," Erik countered, his voice measured. "But did you see what she did? Her control over metal might be weak now, but one day, it could rival mine. Her telekinesis and shadow manipulation are remarkable—even unrefined. Powers like hers don't stay hidden for long."

Charles's patience frayed. "She's an outsider. She's no soldier, Erik. She's been through hell in some lab. We can't thrust her into battle just because her powers might be useful."

Erik raised a hand, his voice calm but insistent. "I'm not suggesting we throw her to the wolves. But you're ignoring the bigger picture. If her abilities include telekinesis—or even telepathy—we're the best chance she has at understanding them. That's why she needs us."

Charles's gaze hardened, his voice low and sharp. "I won't let you use her as a weapon, Erik. She's not a tool. She's a person."

"And I agree," Erik said, surprising Charles with a rare glimmer of sincerity. "But look at what we're building here. Our ideologies? They're a ticking time bomb. If Sarah's presence, her perspective, can anchor us—can make us see beyond our differences—don't you think that's worth exploring?"

Charles stared at him, silence thickening the air between them. Sensing hesitation, Erik stepped closer, his voice dropping to something almost gentle. "You believe in the good of people, Charles. You believe in building something better. I'm telling you—Sarah isn't someone who'll break under pressure. She might be the one who holds us together."

Turning away, Erik gazed out the nearby window, his expression unreadable. "We're at war, whether you like it or not. The world won't wait for Sarah to figure out where she belongs. The question isn't whether she's ready—it's whether we are."

Charles stared at his old friend's back, the weight of Erik's words pressing down on him. Somewhere behind that closed door, Sarah Vasilissa waited—a puzzle neither man could solve, yet one they couldn't afford to ignore.

....

Sarah (POV)

"What's on your mind, Sarah?" Raven's voice broke through my thoughts.

I sat cross-legged on the bed, staring at the window. "Just trying to figure out what to do next," I muttered, my voice low.

The past few days had been a crash course in how not to trust anyone. This wasn't some utopian mansion filled with idealistic mutants. The air here reeked of government control—the kind of place where every smile hid an agenda. A CIA-run facility masquerading as a safe haven, staffed with agents who thought they could corral mutants into their Cold War games.

Charles Xavier, ever the optimist, had roped me into this circus with promises of safety and understanding. But he wasn't the one calling the shots—not entirely. And Erik Lensherr? He might've been on Charles's side for now, but I could already feel the tension between them. Two men, two ideologies, and one unstoppable collision on the horizon.

Their shared target was Sebastian Shaw—a name that sent a shiver down my spine. I'd pieced together enough from overheard conversations to confirm the worst. Shaw wasn't just dangerous; he was smart. A former Nazi scientist turned mutant supremacist, Shaw had spent decades perfecting his vision: mutant dominance through human annihilation. Nuclear war was his endgame. Push humanity into destroying itself and let mutants rise from the ashes as rulers of a new world.

It wasn't just a power grab—it was a declaration of war on the species that had oppressed us. Shaw's methods were horrifyingly effective. I remembered the details vividly, like scenes from a movie I'd once watched. The man had no mercy, no humanity left to speak of. He thrived on chaos, and if Charles and Erik didn't stop him, Shaw's plans would make the Cold War's tensions look like a schoolyard fight.

And me? I was the stray they'd picked up along the way. Charles thought I was a mutant. I wasn't. But I hadn't corrected him—not yet. Maybe because a part of me wanted to stay. Or maybe because I had nowhere else to go.

"Are you always this quiet?" Raven asked, pulling me back to the present.

Her question caught me off guard. Raven—Mystique, as she'd one day call herself—sat beside me on the bed, her posture relaxed but her gaze sharp. This younger version of her was warmer than I expected. She wasn't the ruthless shapeshifter I remembered from the movies. She was still figuring herself out, caught between Charles's dream and Erik's pragmatism.

I hesitated, then began unwrapping the bandages on my arms. The act was slow and deliberate. Beneath the gauze, my skin was flawless—completely healed. A few days ago, it had been a mess of shredded tissue and bruises.

"Raven," I said, holding my arm out. "Fully healed."

Her eyes narrowed. She leaned closer, brushing her fingers across the unblemished skin. "How?"

"Powers went haywire," I replied, keeping my tone light. "Regeneration kicked in to compensate."

Raven's brow furrowed, doubt flickering across her face. But she didn't press further. Instead, she sighed and shook her head. "You'd better keep those bandages on. If the CIA sees this, they'll lose their minds. Last thing we need is them poking around more than they already are."

I let out a humorless laugh. "Yeah, because that's the most shocking thing they'll see this week."

Her lips quirked in a faint smile. For a moment, the tension between us eased, and our conversation drifted to lighter topics—her brother, her thoughts on Charles and Erik, even a joke about how chess seemed to be a prerequisite for joining their little group.

But when she left, the room felt colder. I leaned back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. My thoughts circled back to Raven. She was still… soft. Still searching for her place in a world that didn't accept her. She didn't yet have the confidence—or the bitterness—that would lead her to follow Erik down his darker path.

She was complicated.

"Xavier's idealism versus reality," I murmured, running a hand through my hair. "He dreams of peace, but the world isn't built for it. And Raven? She must've seen enough of humanity's cruelty to know better. But Erik... His methods might be harsh, but after everything he's been through, maybe they make sense to her now. Maybe they make sense to most mutants."

A sigh escaped my lips as I closed my eyes. The lines were already being drawn. Xavier's dream of coexistence against Erik's vision of mutant supremacy. Raven was caught somewhere in between, her future hanging by a thread. She wasn't just caught in a war of ideals; she was at the center of a conflict that would decide her own future. And me? I wasn't sure where I fit into this unfolding drama—but one thing was certain. I wasn't going to sit on the sidelines.

I leaned back, staring at the sterile ceiling, the weight of what I needed to do pressing down on me. "Stop Erik from becoming a full-blown villain," I murmured to myself, the weight of the task sinking in. "Save Raven from the same fate."

The enormity of it all made my head spin. Erik Lehnsherr—the man who would become Magneto. His name carried a future of destruction, rebellion, and an ideology that could fracture the world of mutants and humans alike. For now, Erik was just a level-three mutant, dangerous but still far from the force of nature he would one day become. That transformation, however, was as inevitable as gravity, born not from ambition but from scars—deep, jagged wounds carved into him by humanity's savagery.

I closed my eyes, and the memories of Erik's past flooded my mind. As a child, he had endured the unimaginable: locked in a Nazi concentration camp, torn from his parents during the selection process. In his desperate attempt to reach them, his powers first surfaced, and he bent a metal gate in a display of raw emotion. But the world responded with brutality—he was knocked unconscious by a German soldier, his powers only a fleeting glimpse of what they could become.

And then there was Sebastian Shaw. Shaw is the man, who not only saw Erik's potential but also planted the seed of his darkest beliefs. Shaw's cold, calculating cruelty became Erik's crucible. The murder of his mother, right in front of him, was a blow that shattered what little remained of Erik's childhood. That loss transformed him. It left him with a rage so pure, so all-consuming, that Shaw knew exactly how to manipulate it.

Even when Germany fell, Shaw slipped through justice's fingers, leaving Erik to nurse a wound that would never heal. That grief, that thirst for vengeance, became his guiding force—a force that would one day pull him toward Xavier. Two men, both scarred by the same war, both chasing the same elusive vision, yet unable to see eye to eye. Together, they were like two ends of a magnet—drawn together by a shared purpose, yet always on the brink of tearing each other apart.

All this had played out before I stumbled into this reality, a spectator in their unfolding story. But what worried me more than Erik's pain was Shaw's lingering influence. It was a cruel irony: Erik, the man who hated Shaw with every fiber of his being, had unwittingly inherited the very ideology Shaw had tried to force upon him. Shaw had believed in mutant supremacy, and now, even if Erik couldn't fully see it yet, he was beginning to echo those same beliefs. His kindness was reserved for mutants, his cruelty saved for humans. He wasn't yet Magneto, but I could already see the seeds of that future.

Even in the future, when Erik and Wolverine would cross paths as adversaries, Magneto's restraint in killing Logan revealed something chilling. Magneto didn't care about age, innocence, or morality. He judged mutants by their power. The stronger you were, the more respect you earned. Power was currency in his eyes, and I, with my peculiar abilities, could carry some weight in that ledger.

Maybe I could work with that.

I sat up, running a hand through my hair, my thoughts churning. Of all the mutants here, Erik would be the one to champion me. Not because of empathy, not because of camaraderie, but because of potential. In his mind, I was useful, and Magneto respected utility above all.

"Great," I muttered, the corner of my mouth tugging into a sardonic smirk. "I'm Magneto's favorite science experiment."

Still, the thought lingered. Erik wasn't Magneto yet. He was still a man with a soul, albeit a fractured one. If I could find a way to keep him from spiraling into the abyss, if I could stop Shaw's poisonous ideology from taking root entirely, maybe—just maybe—I could change his future.

And Raven… Raven was another story entirely. There was a fire in her, a spark of rebellion against a world that demanded she hide. I saw it every time she walked into a room, every time she shifted into someone else's skin with a bitterness that felt almost palpable. Saving her wouldn't just mean steering her away from Magneto's influence—it would mean helping her find peace with herself, a feat that felt Herculean in its own right.

"No pressure, Sarah," I muttered, flopping back onto the bed with a groan. "Just rewrite mutant history while you're at it. Sure, why not?"

For now, the focus shifted—magnetism.

I let out a deep sigh, contemplating the best way to wrangle control over metal. Lightning? Yeah, sure, using it to generate magnetism sounded good in theory. But in practice? Total pain in the ass. Earth and wind fusion, on the other hand, were like the lazy river of elemental control—easier to work with, but they required magical energy. Why? Arbitrary rules? I could now, now that I was siphoning energy from my pocket dimension, but...

That's when the image of Magneto flickered in my mind. Yeah, the guy who could bend metal like it was taffy. Not exactly bad at this whole magnetism thing. And if there was anyone who could teach me how to unlock my potential with a little more finesse... it was probably him. Let's face it: If you wanted a pro to teach you the fine art of evil overlord status, Erik was the one to talk to.

As I mulled over that, something else nagged at me. Over the past few days, I'd been getting this... bizarre pull. It was like the metal itself was calling to me, whispering its secrets, trying to coax me into bending it in ways that didn't involve my basic magnetic skills. It felt almost like it had a mind of its own—some creepy telepathic vibe that had nothing to do with the magnetism I knew. I'd been filing it under "unexplained phenomena" for now, but let's be honest—my mind couldn't completely dismiss the possibility that I was discovering a whole new subset of powers: Metalkinesis.

Which, of course, only complicated things further.

Being surrounded by mutants was one thing—being surrounded by mutants and realizing they were walking, talking DNA goldmines? That was a whole other mess entirely. I had always been pragmatic, and with my unrelenting focus on survival, it wasn't long before I started thinking about... how to turn things to my advantage.

The X-Men? Their blood? It wasn't just mutant biology; no, it was prime material. If I could get my hands on that, I could create the ultimate supersoldier serum. Not for myself, mind you—my body wasn't exactly built for traditional human biology. I was an energy construct, after all. But... someone else might find it useful. Someone like my girlfriend back home. Not that I'd ever admit I had a soft spot for anyone—but hey, power was power, and I'd make sure it was put to good use.

My mind wandered to all the ways I could use the data I was going to collect. What if I could get some of the blood from the X-Men, say, one of the more... special mutants? The ones with the weird, overpowered abilities. Maybe some spontaneous regeneration or, dare I think it, a few psychic specialists in the mix. One of those would make for a hell of a serum. And, sure, it'd be a little dark, maybe even a bit shady, but who was counting at this point? I wasn't exactly here to play by the rules.

I snapped myself out of my thoughts, tapping my fingers absently on the table. "Okay, Sarah," I muttered to myself. "Focus. First, figure out how to master metalkinesis before you get all Dr. Frankenstein on people. One step at a time."

I stretched out, letting my fingers flex in the air, trying to feel for the pull again. My thoughts were clear: I accidentally ended up here, might as well make the best of it and take good care of myself.