The world had fallen silent.

Nothing could reach Magneto. Not the shattering of concrete, not the shrieks of those scrambling for their lives, not even the furious pulse of his own heart. His mind refused to process it, to comprehend the horror before his eyes. Someone he had given his all to protect, someone he had cherished with all his being, someone whose mere existence allowed him to hope again, was reduced to just remnants of their mutation, unrecognisable fragments of a life so fiercely bright only moments before.

No. No. Not my baby. Not like this.

His little one, grown and defiant, so ever brave, so ever stubborn. They had been his hope, his light, a reason to believe in something beyond the pain and hatred that had consumed him. They had stood so firm, so resolute in their faith that coexistence was possible, that the world could be different. They had challenged him, fought him, insisted on a better way. And now, for once, he wished with every shattered part of himself that he could be wrong, that his warnings about humanity’s cruelty could have been just the fears of a broken old man.

He didn’t know if he was crying, didn’t know if his body trembled, didn’t even know if his powers raged unchecked. All that existed was this dark, freezing void, the only sensation being the unbearable warmth of what remained of his flesh and blood, cradled between his hands. Warm, so painfully warm, yet he felt the cold seeping into his bones.

He wasn’t sure where he was. His mind and body were in separate realities, his consciousness struggled to tell them apart. In one, he saw himself tearing the city apart, buildings crumbling beneath his wrath. In the other, he was frozen, kneeling, clutching at a life that had slipped through his fingers. His whole being ached with the familiar agony, yet it tore at him as if for the first time, raw and merciless. “Not my baby,” he heard his own whisper, broken and hoarse, echoing from another time, “Not again.”

Not again. Not my baby, not again.