"That's it?"
Everyone nearby stared at Magneto in silence. None of them had expected to hear an answer like that from him.
"What do you mean?"
Pepper looked at Fenris anxiously from the side. "Fenris, can Tony be saved?"
"Don't worry. If even he can't save Tony, then there are probably only a handful of people in the world who could."
Fenris gave her a firm answer, and Pepper's tense nerves finally eased a little.
"If you need it, I can assist from the side," Yinsen cut in. He had been silent until now.
Back in Afghanistan, he had often helped treat and operate on people. Assisting Jean and Magneto should not be a problem for him.
"No need. Just stand back and watch."
Magneto shook his head lightly. "Charles, I thought you had run into some enormous problem if it was serious enough to send Fenris all the way to fetch me."
"No one else has your kind of skill."
Professor X smiled from the back of the room.
"..."
Magneto did not answer, nor did he ask for a proper operating room or tell everyone around him to leave.
Under the gaze of several pairs of eyes, he gently placed his hand over Tony Stark's chest.
In his perception, nearly a dozen metal fragments of varying sizes were scattered around Tony's heart. With each beat of the heart, some of the smaller pieces had already begun slowly pushing inward.
If no one intervened, those tiny fragments would kill Stark with ease.
"He can save someone just like that?"
Watching the strange posture, Pepper clenched her fists tightly, worry churning inside her.
The next moment, an indescribable ripple spread out from Magneto's hand.
All the instruments and screens in the treatment room blurred for an instant, then immediately returned to normal.
A few moments later, Magneto slowly lifted his hand, and Tony Stark's chest rose with it.
Under the force of that powerful magnetic field, the metal fragments were effortlessly broken down into particles so tiny they could barely be measured. Then, under Magneto's exquisitely precise control, they all slipped out through Tony's chest one after another.
Yet Tony's skin remained completely uninjured, looking almost no different from before.
Once outside the body, the microscopic particles, invisible to the naked eye, quickly gathered in Magneto's palm. In the blink of an eye, a small metal sphere had appeared in his hand out of nowhere.
"That's... it?"
No surgery. No long series of complicated tests. Those fragments that had stumped so many people had been removed this easily in less than a minute?
No one present had ever seen anything like it. Magneto's battles were usually broad, overwhelming displays of force. He rarely showed this kind of delicate, microscopic control.
"Erik, you've grown even stronger."
Charles had clearly sensed the progress in his old friend as well, and could not help sighing in admiration.
"There's definitely no problem now. All the hidden danger inside him has been removed."
Jean gave him a quick scan with her powers.
"Tony!"
The moment she learned Stark's problem had been resolved so effortlessly and that he was now safe, Pepper lunged forward and brushed her hand across his chest.
Now that the shrapnel was gone, Tony's complexion already looked a little better.
"Thank you. Thank you so much!"
Pepper bowed deeply to Magneto in gratitude.
At this moment, he was not the infamous Magneto. He was simply Tony Stark's savior.
"You saved Tony's life. You saved Stark Industries too. Whatever you want, we can give it to you."
Pepper spoke with complete sincerity, her voice overflowing with gratitude.
"It was nothing. Just a simple matter."
To other people, Stark Industries might have been some vast corporate giant, but to Magneto, whether Stark was powerful or not meant nothing at all.
Anything Magneto wanted, he could take for himself with ease.
And if even he had to put in real effort to obtain something, Stark Industries would have no hope of getting it either.
Magneto raised a hand. The little metal sphere made from the fragments rapidly changed shape in his palm. In the blink of an eye, it became an elegantly designed necklace and drifted gently onto Pepper Potts' neck.
"This is for you. It should mean something."
"Thank you. Thank you."
As Pepper continued thanking him, Magneto waved it off indifferently, turned around, and took Scott's place pushing Charles out of the treatment room.
He did not care that the man he had saved was a billionaire genius inventor. He only knew that it was time to go play chess with Charles.
"Charles, it's been a long time since the two of us properly played a game together."
After leaving the treatment room, Erik pushed Charles quietly through the school grounds.
Watching the happy smiles on the faces of the children all around them, Erik found himself smiling too.
"The last time we took a walk like this was more than ten years ago."
Charles could not help sighing as well.
As time slowly passed, the companions who had once fought alongside them had gradually drifted out of their lives. The only one who had truly remained by his side all this time was Erik.
As they spoke, the two of them found a small stone table out in the open and set up the board.
"I have noticed one thing. Ever since Fenris arrived, the atmosphere around the school seems to have improved quite a bit."
Erik made the first move and spoke as though the thought had only occurred to him casually.
"Oh?" Charles asked in surprise. "Hasn't the school always been the same all these years? What could have changed?"
"You're still as slow as ever. You can't even see your own home clearly."
Erik's voice was full of disdain. "Today I realized that compared to last time, Fenris now carries a very strange magnetic field around him, something I have never seen before."
"This magnetic field around him is influencing the environment at every moment. It may even be affecting you, or the X-Men."
"That too?"
Charles froze, then suddenly straightened in his chair. "Then do you think this change is good or bad?"
He glanced down and saw his pieces being ruthlessly taken one after another by Erik. His brows twitched, and he quietly altered his line of play.
"Charles, don't cheat."
Erik helplessly moved to defend against one of the pieces, but continued speaking. "So far, it looks like a good thing, and all the changes it's producing seem beneficial... but after this, that is harder to say."
"It's fine." Charles gave his answer without the slightest hesitation. "I trust that child."
"I can't deny everything that child has done just because of a future that hasn't happened yet. That wouldn't be fair."
"Charles, you..."
Erik looked at his friend helplessly, then changed the subject. "Forget it. As long as you know what you're doing."
"About the Sentinel robots I mentioned last time. Have you found any new leads on your end?"
"Yes."
The moment that subject came up, the expression on Erik's face turned serious.
"After my investigation, I discovered that after all these decades, the founder of the Sentinel Program, Bolivar Trask, is still alive."
"If nothing unexpected has happened, then he is still active in the shadows, constantly improving his Sentinel robots."
"But recently, by following the trail left behind by the clues they exposed, I traced the source of a mysterious material."
"Wakanda."
(End of Chapter)
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