Magneto felt a weakness deep in his bones; it was a cold, chilling feeling, as if the warmth was being sucked out of his marrow.
Still, that coldness, that weakness, was suppressed by burning determination.
"Arrrhhh!" he shouted, and pushed, sweat covering his forehead as he exerted himself.
And the result of his hard work didn't disappoint. The four huge Sentinels he kept trapped using his powers finally compressed into four metal balls. Large ones, but at least they were no longer functioning. Nothing could survive what he put them through.
"Ahh, ahhh," he panted slightly, yet he quickly recovered, feeling better than he had moments before, that chilling weakness disappearing completely.
"Thanks, boss, those damned machines would have killed us for sure if not for you," a thankful mutant said, doing his best to hide the fear from his voice.
"Show some respect to the King," another mutant reprimanded the first.
Magneto raised his hand to stop them both. "There is no need for that. I might be king now, but I haven't forgotten that I once swore brotherhood with all my kin. I might be king, yes, but I am also family with each and every one of you."
The first mutant let out a laugh. "Then you have my thanks, big brother; those damned things are horrible. I never felt this powerless before in my life."
The second mutant clearly wanted to say something about the lack of respect, but in the end, he held his tongue. "Indeed, what was that weakness I felt? I felt like I could barely teleport at all."
This question caused Magneto to furrow his brow. "Some kind of anti-mutant field, meant to leave us powerless."
"Ha, fat good it did them, eh? You crushed them like cans." The first mutant laughed, but the second looked worried.
"That is worrying; if they can do that once, they can do it again," he pointed out.
Magneto had to agree. This was something worth worrying about. While he was far from a stranger to mutant suppression technology, most of it was in the form of shackles and cages, or at least required direct touch to work.
But these machines?
They had never gotten within 100 meters of him, and yet they had still affected him.
This was far worse than anything he had faced before. Worse yet, after dealing with a dozen Sentinels by now, he realized that the more of them gathered together, the stronger this effect was.
This technology could indeed threaten mutants on a large scale. If they could be mass-produced and installed throughout a city, then any mutant inside that city would be left powerless.
This would greatly limit his ability to act, not to mention that, long before this would be used in public, every secret military installation, every place they killed and cut apart his kin, would have it.
Making it all but impossible for him to save his people in the future.
This was something that was even more dangerous to his people than the Sentinels themselves.
They were weapons, and weapons he could deal with. Even if it wasn't easy, all weapons could be stopped, and the Sentinels would be stopped soon enough.
Because they weren't just targeting mutants, they were going wild, slaughtering people everywhere, so the rest of the world would help deal with them.
As long as he and his people could weather this storm, a dawn would break, one without Sentinels.
But that dawn might instead bring forth something far more dangerous.
Still, for now, he didn't have to think about that. The technology was still not fully mature, the machines producing the effect were within the range of his powers, he could still feel their effect, and use his powers.
And as long as he could do that, he could just destroy the machines completely.
After all, even the Sentinels, despite every attempt at making them immune to his power, fell short. The metal on them was difficult to manipulate, yes, but far from impossible.
"Let's go, next location," he finally said as he pushed down his intrusive thoughts.
"Yes, Your Highness," the second mutant, the respectful teleporter, quickly replied as he poked the screen of his phone a few times, reading a few messages to find where they should go next.
Magneto had long since started to spread his people throughout Ireland, wanting to claim it as his own.
There, his people had started to build lives of their own, and now those lives were threatened.
As King, Magneto didn't just want his people to run back and hide in Albion at the first sight of danger.
No, if they wanted a nation of their own, then they had to protect it; the ability to protect a nation was what made a nation.
The old United Kingdom had fallen precisely because they had no way of stopping Arthuria.
Ireland was up for grabs for the same reason; they had little military of their own.
It was a battlefield of interests, and to capture it would require more than just taking the capital and declaring himself king.
No, that path led nowhere. He would follow Arthuria's example.
She hadn't just used force. That alone wouldn't have ensured her kingdom was so stable, her people so loyal. It was about benefits and belonging. The people of England had been pressuring their own old government.
They wanted Arthuria as King.
Which was why, when she finally used force, the resistance was minimal, even when she introduced harsh laws.
The vast majority accepted them because, overall, they benefited.
This was what Magneto wanted. He would protect not just his own people, but all of Ireland, show the non-mutants that following him would mean a better life.
He needed to prove he was a worthy king, not just to them, but to himself. He had to be better than the humans he hated.
So he was out here, fighting in the streets, leading from the front, proving himself to them all.
Because if he, their king, couldn't protect them, then who could?
"My King," the teleporter said, sounding a little nervous as he relayed the information. "A large group of Sentinels is gathering in Dublin. They are heading for the port."
Magneto nodded, a frown forming on his face. The port of Dublin was an important location, one that was vital to Ireland.
He had quite a few people there, hidden and ready to take control of it at any point. And even if they could fight, such a battle would be far too destructive; he didn't want to inherit a broken nation, which would just drain his resources.
"Take us there, at a distance from the Sentinels. We wouldn't want to appear in front of a wave of plasma... again," he said, eyes narrowed in warning.
"Yes, I'm sorry, that was my mistake." The mutant quickly nodded his head, afraid of punishment.
Magneto didn't say anything. That attitude, the fear, the overly respectful tone.
It was nothing special among his people.
Some would be like the older mutant they had just saved, somewhat respectful, but not really caring about the title of king at all.
Others, well, they nearly worshipped the ground he walked on.
Like this one.
He was someone Magneto had saved from captivity. He had been broken, tormented, reduced to a tool for his captors.
Among the more than a million mutants he had gathered under him after his alliance with Arthuria, there were many like him.
Far too many.
Still, for a teleporter to be captured... it was rather embarrassing.
Once more, he shook his head, forcing himself to focus on the current mission, and held out his arm.
The mutant carefully, yet firmly, gripped his wrist. Then, he took one good look at his phone, picturing himself appearing in the location in the picture. "I wanna be there," he whispered.
Magneto closed his eyes.
"I wanna be there," the teleporter repeated.
The older mutant looked curiously from the side.
"I wanna be there."
"Fucking hell! My eyes!" the old mutant screamed as he was overcome with a headache and nausea.
His brain just couldn't compute what it had seen, and it didn't like it at all, which made him suffer for watching something human eyes weren't meant to see.
-----
Magneto opened his eyes as soon as he heard the teleporter repeat himself for the fourth time.
And he was no longer in the location he had been in when he closed his eyes; instead, he stood on top of a rooftop, with the scent of the sea in his nose.
He knew the trick to teleporting with this one. It wasn't as good as Nightcrawler or Azazel had been.
It wasn't instant, there was a small buildup, and no cloud of smoke to conceal what was happening. And what did happen... he had no words to describe.
Better to save himself the suffering and just close his eyes for a moment.
"Stay close," he said, as he took off into the air, not high, but just enough to get a better picture of the situation.
The Port of Dublin.
A place of commerce, now the site of a battle.
The Sentinels, a legion of steel and fury, were advancing, their red eyes sweeping the area, their weapons firing at anything that moved.
The Irish military was present, but they were outmatched. Their weapons were useless against the Sentinels, their tanks were little more than toys for the machines to play with.
Magneto's people, the mutants he had placed here, were also fighting, but they were outmatched. They were brave, they were skilled, but they were few, and the Sentinels were many.
The port was a battleground, and the Sentinels were winning.
But Magneto was here now.
And he would not let them win.
Fighting the Sentinels wasn't easy, even though he had almost gotten hurt the first time.
But now, he knew how to deal with them.
He took full advantage of them being busy. Even if their sensors would no doubt have detected him, the fact that they were already fighting gave him a moment.
And that was all the master of magnetism needed.
His power reached out, towards the Sentinels themselves. Yes, it wasn't easy to manipulate them, but he had learned that it was still the easiest thing to do.
They were simply too strong to kill from the outside.
He felt his powers wash over them, and then, he clamped down, hard.
It felt like he had just taken something heavy into his hands, like a great weight fought against him. Pressure covered his entire body, making him groan.
But the effect was immediate.
The Sentinels all froze in place, the plasma fire stopped, and the missiles they had launched stalled in the air.
In an instant, the battle stopped as one side stopped fighting entirely.
At first, the defenders were confused, yet as they realized what had happened, a wave of relief and cheers spread.
Magneto paid them no mind. He was too busy trying to crush the machines to dust.
He brought his hands together, and the Sentinels were forced together as well, but they fought back with all their might, their systems clearly designed to do so.
He felt a sharp pain in his head, and then he felt the familiar, chilling weakness again.
But he pushed through, his determination unyielding.
The Sentinels were crushed together, their metal bodies buckling and groaning under the strain.
"ARRRRRRR!" Magneto screamed as he pushed hard, and the mass of half-crushed Sentinels compressed to half its size.
In that instant, there were no more Sentinels, just a ball of scrap metal. Every system, every machine inside them, was instantly broken and ruined. The ball shook as a few parts exploded, but the weakness disappeared once more.
Magneto breathed hard. Today had not been easy; each encounter was a struggle, but in the end, as long as there weren't more than a dozen at a time, he could win.
(End of chapter)
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