Chapter 1- A Touch of History

Citadel Courtyard, 2008 March 15 (late morning)

Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto)-

Erik stood next to the wreckage of the attack helicopter that he had captured last month and used to down their other craft. He reached out with his powers, poking and prodding at the piles of steel, aluminum, and plastic.

The sound of footsteps didn't distract him, but he still slowed as he turned to look at the person approaching him. "Nath'aniel." Erik muttered, when he saw the young mage in a blue and purple robe. Before returning his full attention back to the wreck.

"Elizabeth said that you wanted to talk to him. What are you doing to my trophy?" The younger man asked. At least as far as Erik was concerned he was the older one of the two of them.

"Your trophy? ... I downed both of their aircraft before you joined the fight... And I do, I have two things I wanted to talk to you about." Erik said as he increased his grip on the panels and plates of the chopper's airframe.

Erik didn't see what the mage wrote, but the flash of light made him turn to see what Nath'aniel had done. The mutant wasn't sure why the sight of the mage sitting on solid air still surprised him after all the other things the mage had shown them, but somehow it still did. The sound of metal striking metal made him regain his focus. Some of the panels shifted and bent when he moved, before they banged into the chopper's internal components.

"Did you just harden air?" Erik asked once he was composed again.

"Yes." Nath'aniel admitted.

Erik began to pull and detach the outermost layer of the chopper as he asked "Is that a new spell?"

"Also yes." The mage said, his tone seemed to be distracted. Making Erik wonder, if the mage was studying the way he used his powers.

For the panels that were already flat and intact, Erik stacked them off to the side. But some of the others were torn or mangled and he began to straighten and smooth the metal with his powers. As he worked he asked. "Is that what you do when you can't sleep, research spells? You know both Exodus and Betsy have commented to me that you should rest more."

"Yes, among other activities. But it's not that I can't sleep, but rather that I don't sleep." Nath said as an explanation.

The mutant's work slowed as he looked over at Nath'aniel. The other man pointed at himself, before adding. "Mage, not human. I only require sleep when I am sick or tired after strenuous activity. Which lately, I haven't been either. "

"A rather lucky adaption to have unlocked for a people." Erik commented as he continued his work.

"Luck had nothing to do with it." Nath'aniel added. That comment made the older man pause his work and stare at the other man, after a moment the mage continued, "The first mages were made, not born. Although we were not called mages then, we were called Watchers. I do forget how much of what was common knowledge to me, is forgotten by all of you."

"Well you did sleep for six thousand years, that's a lot of history to both be written and lost." Erik said before starting his work a new.

"Five thousand, nine hundred and fifty-one years." Nath'aniel corrected.

It was last week when the Citadel announced that she had finished her calculations and told them the Magi date. Erik found it weird that they only had ten months, so even though it was halfway through March already, they were only at the beginning of their third month, Vanahiem.

Not wanting to drift off even this much, Erik said. "First I wanted to thank you for the gold. I gave it to Exodus. Oh, and he will be gone for a while. I sent him to get in touch with our other members. Those that we cannot reach through our communications equipment, now that I have them working again."

Erik hadn't been idle since they had dealt with the mercenaries. He had retrieved not only the broken choppers, but also the Grey-wing. He had also fixed much of the jet's damage, but since he was already working on it, and their stealth systems had been given to their enemies, he figured it was time for an upgrade.

"It's not a problem. I hadn't any plans for metal." Nath'aniel said. "Is that all for the first topic?"

"No, I wanted to clarify something about our agreement." Erik immediately replied. "Can we bring those other members here? And what if they have, oh I don't know, children are they too allowed to live here as well?"

The mage took a breath, before answering. "So long as they are in good standing with your Brotherhood, and are active members, then they are permitted here." Nath'aniel sighed before he added. "However I cannot guarantee a place for non-members."

The mutant stopped his work again. He only had a trio of plates left, but the answer Nath'aniel gave him was a surprise. The mage had been exceedingly generous with them, and their relationships had grown in the short time they had started living here. Erik was even willing to call the other man a friend. So hearing that their family members could not be added here, was a little unexpected.

"You have enough space, you could house hundreds if not…" Erik began to argue, but was interrupted.

"Thousands, the Citadel alone can house three and a half thousand. Three times that if we gain access to the sub-basement's barracks. But that does not mean I can feed them." the mage admitted.

Erik countered. "We can gather what we need in the Preserve. It is vast and healthy. There is more than enough here for us…"

"And in two to three weeks I will be kicking most of you out for lack of fulfilling your end of the agreement." Nath'aniel stated.

"What?!" Erik asked in complete denial.

"The Preserve is poison to anyone unable to use magic. I had assumed you would have figured it out already. It has been since before my multi-millennium-long nap." The mage confessed.

"The Tribals," Erik realized before saying. "And the discrepancy in their intelligence. The vast majority are no more than simple brutes, while their shamans and priests seem as smart as you and I."

Nath'aniel nodded. He then sighed as he began to explain. "The Citadel was not the only Magi settlement when the war was started. We hadn't even thought to build something like the Perception Filter when word of it reached our shores… It was Grandmaster Rathium who developed it. Resource denial they called it. My father thought it a waste, but he was only among the few who thought so."

Erik looked out past the clearing into the trees that surrounded the Citadel. 'Truly a test of temptation, being before such a bountiful land, and yet all of it would end them.' He thought, before asking "Are we at risk?"

Nath'aniel shook his head, before explaining. "The food you've been eating is safe, as is anything we would grow in the Greenhouse. But all of that was built with a Mage's biology in mind. You Tribesmen all not only eat more than me, you have a whole other meal on top of that."

Erik nodded. He knew that by Nath'aniel saying 'no' now, they were saving themselves from having to deal with the drama and 'what ifs' of later. 'That means Mystique will not be joining us." the mutant muttered before getting back to the last of the plates.

"Oh?" the mage asked.

"She has kids." Erik admitted. "Three currently, she took in two runaways and is raising her own son… I shouldn't really have told you that, we have a rule in the Brotherhood. To keep each other's secrets. But everyone has more or less knows about it, it's why she was so open to operating solo for us. As it gave her the option to visit them between missions." As he laid the last panel on the completed pile, he added. "And honestly I kind of see you as one of us already."

"That doesn't mean you get my tower when I die." Nath'aniel joked.

Both men laughed.

As their laughter settled down, the mutant asked. "That reminds me, did you get your teleporters fixed?"

"The Re-locators," Nath'aniel corrected, "yes and no. I fixed them, but the Citadel isn't making enough power to get them properly operating. And we don't have enough power cells to justify dedicating one to its use. After all, we don't know when or whom will attack us next."

Erik again looked out into the jungle. Here and there he could make out shapes. But it was his powers that told him they were there. Chucks of raw iron were moving to and fro. The Citadel's Filter gives the cavemen an illusion, and those who saw past the effect are then made to forget what they saw after a time. 'Truly a brilliant tool', Erik thought.

However, the Obsidian Fang’s soldiers were able to bypass this defense and were able to locate them. Via the tracking chip in the collar, a mutant that they had liberated had worn. The following battle brought the natives back into the area as they were interested in the noise and sights the fight had created.

Erik then wrapped up the flattened plates and walked them over to their jet.

"What are your plans for those anyway?" Nath'aniel asked from his seat.

Erik explained his intentions while he pulled the damaged plates of the Grey-wing. "I plan to use them as replacements for our Grey-wing. You see these are a special alloy that is made purposely to capture and absorb radar waves. Our previous stealth system would capture the silhouettes of other crafts. And make us appear as something else. But by combining both we should be able to fool them once again."

"Why not just acquire the metal in the first place?" the mage asked in between metal screeches.

"They are a military-grade metal, very highly regulated... Either you need to know a supplier directly, which we don't… Or they would be very expensive from the black market, which we couldn't afford… I could have stolen them of course, but it didn't seem essential at the time." Erik replied, in between the noise of metal striking or scraping on metal.

"You don't have enough to cover the entire craft." Nath'aniel observed.

Erik knew that before he started, so he stated. "The goal is to make it appear smaller, not invisible… At least not yet."

They sat in silence for a time while the mutant continued his work, and swapped the panels on the center and rear of the craft for the newer ones. The rear took the longest, as he had to remold the panels into their proper shape to allow the craft to still be able to fly.

"And your other topic?" the mage asked, when Erik neared the end of his task.

Erik sighed before answering. He turned to face Nath'aniel as he said. "I wanted an update on your investigation on what you did to Psylocke." The mage looked away, either in shame or guilt. "It's been almost three weeks. You've scanned and re-scanned both yourself and her. You must know something by now!"

Erik didn't yell, but his tone at the end showed the other man that he was upset about the lack of updates.

His powers suddenly telling him there was something metal nearby was his only warning. Between him and Nath'aniel stood the woman in question, a bow made from psychic energy in her hands and an arrow drawn and ready to be fired. She was still in her new revealing ninja outfit. And while her face was the same, her eyes were not.

Betsy was the heart of Erik's second Brotherhood. She knew what she wanted. Elizabeth wanted to be able to walk the streets of this world with her head held high. Not just because of her powers, but because she was proud of both her heritages, of being both British and Japanese. However, she also didn't want us to become the monsters that the media portrayed them as. That there was a line, which their group shouldn't cross.

And now the cold eyes of a killer were staring at him.

Erik stared not too long into those eyes, instead his vision drifted towards the arrow aimed at him. He hoped his helmet, which normally protected him from telepathic invasion, would also shield him from the psychic nature that was that arrow. But he doubted it.

"Do not threaten him." Psylocke hissed at him.

"He didn't threaten me, he spoke firmly." Nath'aniel said in Erik's defense.

Betsy didn't look away from her target, but he noticed her face had softened. "You felt sad."

Nath'aniel moved over towards her slowly. "He asked a question I don't have an answer to." The mage's hand was laid slowly on her bow arm. "It made me sad that I can't tell him, but more to you, what my spell has done to you."

She lowered her arm. Her face melted back to something closer to the person Erik had known for the better part of seventeen years. She had a conflicted look, like part of her was glad and another was angry with herself. Instead of an apology or an explanation, she just vanishes in a mist of purple sparkles.

"She couldn't teleport before." Erik said trying to make a point again.

"She's not teleporting," Nath'aniel corrected. "She's becoming a spirit. Elizabeth is still here, she just doesn't want us looking at her while we talk about it, well the spell. She doesn't want to be defined by what happened to her."

"She told you all that?" Erik asked as he stepped closer to the mage.

Nath'aniel shook his head. He then sighed and admitted. "I wanted to have definitive proof. I wanted to point at the theorem or thesis and say 'I did that' before coming to both of you… She had been shot with one of those light weapons, and was dying."

"A laser rifle." Erik corrected. He suppressed the grin that was beginning to form on his face.

Nath'aniel nodded at the correction but continued to speak. "I had to act, I knew no spell that would save her in time… So I casted on instinct. Something my father would have been very disappointed in me for doing."

"Don't show me some theory that I can't read." The mutant said before leaning into the other man's face. "Tell me what you think you did."

Erik could feel that steel short sword was back, warning him that Psylocke had taken a physical form again. Nath'aniel raised his hand towards someone behind him, before asking. "Must I hazard a guess?"

"You must." The older man answered.

"I think I made her a Servant." Nath'aniel confessed.