3540/Magneto Must Pay

Magneto Must Pay
Date of Scene:	01 January 2018
Location:	Classified
Synopsis:	Hope Summers and the Scarlet Witch act on their plain to deal with Magneto. Only, they have different plans on how to eliminate the threat he represents.
Cast of Characters:	White Phoenix, Scarlet Witch, Magneto

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White Phoenix has posed:
Date: January 1, 2026
Location: Classified

The bunker was chosen because it was away from the civilized world. Out in the country side, built far underground with the entrance through a truck stop that has no business being that far from an interstate. The place is known locally for the best fried chicken in the area. The grounds are manned by a handful of SHIELD agents, most of whom are posing as employees at the truck stop. Seven stories down, there is a small area that is the prison itself. The bunker is built to withstand a full force attack by a small army. In the center of the facility is a plastic prison, suspended in the middle of an oversized room. Inside that prison, Magneto is being held pending prosecution by the United States Government for his attack on the White House and suspected involvement with the assassination of the President.

There is a control room off to the side with a widow, allowing the men and women manning it to monitor the Genosha Lord at all times. Other than that, the place is quite and barren. It was not meant to be a hub of activity, simply a hole to store the suspect in for as long as necessary.

There are those that have business with Magneto though. They will stop at nothing to reach him and be sure there is some sort of retribution for his actions.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
It was simple, really. Tricks of the eye almost always worked. And with no small amount of chaos magic thrown in behind them...

To the first glance, they looked like SHIELD agents. Swipe cards and all. On camera, they were just another number of random agents taking their shift. Unless you paid them any great attention. Then the glamour begins to fall apart. The clothing stops looking so pristinely SHIELD. The swipe cards mothing more than random pieces of plastic that somehow manage to not trigger any security alarms.

But that's only if you're paying close attention, and right now, the very last thing Wanda wants is anyone paying attention to them. So for a time, that whisper of a command is there, too.

~We belong here~

~There's nothing to see here out of the ordinary~

With luck - and Wanda always had luck - they could get in, and out, without any random casualties.

Magneto has posed:
    For the first time, in a very long time, in fact, since his initial incarceration, Magneto seems to have always seemed to predict his 'visitors' with astounding accuracy. As if he has an internal GPS, or some perfectly synced internal clock. The master of magnetism stands up from his chair, and closes his book, turning towards the doorway as if in anticipation of some coming storm.

    Erik taps his shoe briefly before turning his eyes onto the walkway on the otherside of his confinement, and he waits.

White Phoenix has posed:
Hope is with Wanda, walking through the hallways as though they own the place. She is adding her own borrowed telepathy to the waves being sent out by Wanda. Once they are through the truck stop itself, the agents leave the building and shut down the restaurant and pumps. They get into their vehicles and leave. There are waves of psionic power filling the area, urging anyone within a mile of the site to go elsewhere for a time.

The walkway to Magneto's prison is extended, sliding out from the wall until it meets with the locked door of is cell. It's all transparent, allowing him to see as it happens. The door on the far end opens, allowing the two "agents" to walk toward the cell where they will be able to open the door.

Hope glances to the control room and sends that urge to exit to the handful of people within. They stand like automatons and head for the exit without a single word.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
It helps that they *want* to leave. Every one of them blythely wandering off in.. well, not a stupor, but a pleasant state where wayward thoughts of should they be doing this or not just aren't entering into their minds. It's time to leave, isn't it? They've had a long day. There's family at home. Warm food. Something enjoyable.

To each their own fantasy of how best to end the day. All pleasant and looked forward to.

Doors lock behind them, assuring that none get back in. The security systems momentarily overridden. Passkeys, swipe cards, retinal scans - all come up as blank on the data base - as though the computers somehow are accessing a totally different bank of servers. One that continues to send nulls. It's totally and terribly improbable..

And that's why it works.

Wanda waits for the walkway to extend fully, and for Hope.

Magneto has posed:
    Erik moves the book in his hand onto the clear table and rests it down with a soft pat to the book's back cover before he turns back his grey gaze towards the two coming down the walkway. A subtle squint as he peeks through the plastic door at the two 'agents' approaching him.

    His attention turns to the control room when he sees movement in there and starts to get an idea of what's going on. He turns back towards Hope and Wanda. "Ladies. To what do I owe the pleasu- Wanda. Come to see your father in jail. I trust this means your sister is still running things back home?" Polite, confident and yet curious as his eyes shift from Wanda to the new girl. Another red head, of course.

White Phoenix has posed:
As they get closer, Hope is doing her best to control her anger upon seeing the man that she has been working so hard to find. She is dressed in a green and yellow costume with a poncho of sorts over her shoudlers. Now that they have no more witnesses, she has allowed the illusion of a SHIELD agent to drop. His attitude makes her want to strike out at him but she waits. Not yet. She's waited this long. A few more minutes won't make a difference.

A swipe of a keycard has the doorway to the plastic cell opening, allowing them access to the man. And for Hope, to his powers as she feels the surge through her body. She doesn't respond to his words. They weren't for her anyway. Instead she motions to the doorway, urging him to exit toward them. Wanda can handle conversation.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Unlike Hope, Wanda is cool. Calm. collected. The anger of her has been spent on centering herself, and seeing the situation for what it must be. She can not allow herself to feel. That's how she loses herself. That's how she's manipulated by those she has loved.

In this, she can not allow that to be. So she is.. Not.

"Papa," she greets Erik with a slight cant of head. "I do not know. I have been.." Her words are chosen carefully. Words are his balliwick. Things he twists and turns against a person. She has been victim of that before. "I have been away. We must talk." The we of the three of them implied. She. Hope. Magneto.

Things converge around them. The nexus of realities witnessing the gathering of power at this place.

"Come. There are things that must be done."

Magneto has posed:
    "Indeed, there is much to be done my child." Erik says as he steps closer to the women and seems to walk past them, but he doesn't turn to go towards the way out, instead Erik turns the other way to walk towards the control room without seeking approval first from the women.

    

White Phoenix has posed:
When they have reached the hallway, Hope frowns as Magneto goes the wrong direction. She glances to Wanda a moment then back to Magneto. "The exit is this way. We have no need to go to the control room. The agents are all gone. Come." Her voice is hard, cold, something that doesn't go with her youthful image. She's commanded before and seems to think she has the right to do so now, no matter who she is speaking to. Even the great Magneto.

"Come this way. Now."

Scarlet Witch has posed:
There is nothing but a shrug from Wanda for Hope's glance to her. As much as if to say she does not know. There should be nothing there for him. At least not that she knows of. Still, she doesn't want him there either.

Wanda finds herself agreeing with Hope, though her own tones are not of such command. There need not be two with that voice. "Come, Papa. There is nothing there for you now." Something in her tones suggesting that she knows something about the control room that he does not. Indeed, the consoles there are caught in that loop of nulls created earlier. They will be a liability sooner than later should anyone at SHIELD be paying attention remotely. Another reason to leave. The fewer people involved in the actions she and Hope intend to engage in, the better.

"Please, let us leave before we are found out, Papa."

Magneto has posed:
    "Patience young girl." Erik remarks as he moves his hands to clasp behind his back as he enters the doorway into the control room. Still wearing the prisoner jumpsuit the man looks completely out of place and yet his body language is beyond calm, it's purpose. He's moving with more control and purpose than anyone else in the facility.

    The man summons a flashdrive over to him, but the thing hovers in the air before sliding into the port next to a computer and Mangeto stands before it, looking blankly at the computer. "Hmm... I never got the hang of all this..." The man says with a few blinks towards the monitor. "Computer, download." He says without any response.

    Yes, it does seem like he's ignoring the two other mutants, but this is exactly why he's here in this facility, why he allowed himself to be taken prisoner.

White Phoenix has posed:
The young mutant woman is forced to follow behind the master of magnetism. Hope stops at the door as he reaches out and that flash drive floats through the air to the computer. Then she feels her fury explode as she realizes what he is doing.

"You knew someone would come for you," she says in a low voice. "You had access to your powers in that cell. You did all of this on purpose so you could get in here." She doesn't look toward Wnada as she reaches out a hand in front of her.

The computer where the flashdrive is plugged in suddenly begins to tear apart in a rending of metal and plastics. "How /dare/ you."

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda frowns when the flashdrive is summoned and inserted into the computer. To her it seems of no value. It isn't a thing she understand that he should be wasting his time doing. But then again, computers are not her thing either. She only knows that they will not respond to SHIELD at this moment, and that they are nothing but nonsense at this time. It may be that what her father does is a stalling technique. Or perhaps he knows something she does not. And that troubles her.

Hope changes all those thoughts, though, with the rending of the machine. There is no mistaking the other girl's doing - her anger a palpable thing, snapping in the air, much like the ripping apart of the computer itself.

It all makes sense, though. He knew. He had always known. So this had been his plan all along. Wanda had known there must be something. She just couldn't see the forest for the trees.

"No!" she cries out softly, her own throwing up of hands adding to Hope's destruction. What is not being torn apart becomes inert. Useless.

It might only be a shortsighted act - to stop her father from downloading - but it is what the moment draws from her. Her centre being eaten away by her own fears and Hope's anger. Wanda no longer able to foccus so precisely upon the vision of this reality. Nothing quite as certain as it was moments ago. She can't see him as clearly as when they arrived.

That's how things go, sometimes... you put your feet upon a path, and the rest of them fall away. For good or ill, they had set something in motion.

Magneto has posed:
    Mangeto steps back, and non of the metalic pieces get near him when she tears it appart, almost as if there was a small protective invisible sphere near him preventing anything getting too close.

    "Did I know someone would come for me, I didn't know, but I figured with the war going on, it was only a matter of time my dear... Wanda, what is your friend's name?" He asks, his tone polite and still unthreatened by the firey red head.

    "How dare I? I didn't hurt anyone, I have only been after one thing. Mutants, Homo Superior, on top of the global food chain. I want my people to not be down trodden or treated like lower class citizens. How am I the one at fault in this?" Magneto says before he looks up into the ceiling as Wanda joins in the assault on the machine. This is not something he can handle, and sending his powers up, he bores a hole up to the surface by pushing all the metal up and away from the facility.

White Phoenix has posed:
"You are the one who had the President of the United States assassinated," Hope says with a frown as she hears the rending of the metal through the facility as he opens that hole from the control room, up seven stories, and tearing through the truck stop itself. At this distance, they should still see sunlight but instead the sky above is a swirling mass of gray clouds with streaks of lightning dancing through them. A few drops of rain fall through the hole to the room they stand it but it is only a splattering, not a serious rainfall.

"You are the one who is precipitating the war. You are the one getting our people killed all in the name of your cause," she snarls as her eyes suddenly go solid red with no pupil. There is a swell of power around her, a feeling like static electricity in the air that makes the hair on arms stand on end.

"My name is Hope Summers and I will not let you drag us into a war with the humans again." For her it is again at least. Likely that doesn't make sense to them.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda does not know Hope's story, but parts of her feel a strange kinship towards the woman. A syncing of purpose, perhaps? Part of her wonders if it is more than that. Nor does she understand the 'again' of Hope's words, except, in that there is a synchronicity to things. Cycles and waves that come and go throughout reality.

She still struggles to know her place in that, but Wanda is not unaware of the periphery of that within her. How things are or aren't. How they nudge up against her and exist. And when Hope says "again", there is a chord struck within that says this is so. That this has happened. Will happen. Is happening. It's a resonance that momentarily takes her breath away and leaves her almost dizzy with the feel of it.

This is why her father must be stopped. This is why she and Hope have met. This is why worlds are colliding in this space.

The smattering of rain smells like dead things. Like ashes. A streak of lightning crosses the sky above them, lighting up the room they are in, and ending with the lights going out, leaving only the emergency potlights on. Their dull red glow illuminating the trio where they stand.

"She speaks truth, Papa. It is you who are hurting us. You do not see it, but it is true. This war you want, we will lose even as we win. You can not be allowed."

Her hands are spread in a helplessness as she knows what she must do. Only her compassion for the man she knows and loves as father stilling her action. Giving him a chance to redeem himself, even as she knows he will not take it.

Magneto has posed:
    "I assassinated no one little girl." Erik says with a look back to Hope, and he takes a step towards her, his hands still behind his back as all of the metal pieces of the computer not only splinter further, but spin rapidly in place before moving into a sort of semi-sphere to counter the red eyes he's more than familiar with. Or so he thinks. "Summers you said. I thought there was a familiarity to you." Erik says before turning his attention to Wanda. "What would you have me do child? Lay down as Charles would? Allow the humans to work their science against us until we are removed as a threat to their fickle superiority?" Erik asks as more of the building opens and the hole gets larger as he seemingly excavates the whole black site.

White Phoenix has posed:
The widening of the hole allows more rain to enter, the lightning flashing wildly in those swirling black clouds far above. The power of the storm is a reflection of the emotions Hope is feeling. It is one of the dangers of the weather control powers of a certain mutant. She gains those weaknesses along with the benefits. Now, the weather outside will mirror her mood. Dark. Angry. Violent.

"You don't know me," Hope snaps as she floats a few inches in to the air. The combatants are squaring off. He has his sphere of metal around him. She draws a telekinetic bubble around herself. If they do not leave soon, there is no doubt things will go sideways and then there will likely be no bunker left. Not that there is much left thanks to the magnetic excavation above them. "But I'll introdude myself. You killed several people that day at the White House. One of them was my father. He was a hero and he died that day because part of the damaged building collapsed on him while he was trying to help others." Her voice is cold, tight. It doesn't reflect the emotions within but that torm outside rages louder wirh screaming winds adding to the nightmare. "He left a little girl behind with no one. My powers were born that day." She taps into the borrowed powers and a swirl of metal begins to mirror the one around him, showing that she has his abilities as well. "And those powers are going to end your machinations and plots. I will tolerate you no longer. Today, I will stop you."

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Ah.. so many piecese begin to fall into place. Much like the rain. Little drops that at first don't seem like they could be very much, but in the end, when there are enough of them, cover the ground completely, and more, soak a body to the skin. You can't escape them. There is no not getting wet. Sooner or later, a drop will land.

She turns to Hope. "It should not be here. We agreed. No innocents." And the longer they remain, the less likely that will remain true.

Magneto has posed:
    "This is not a fight any of us wish." Magneto says with a glance up towards the skies and then a grimace as the rain starts to pour into the hole. "This is a fight the world would relish in. Mutant versus mutant." Magento says, quickly getting a hold on how powerful Hope actually is at how much the weather patterns have shifted and how she's copied his shield with the simplest of ease.

    "Then you should know how wars go then if your father was at the White House, but I was not intending to get anyone killed in that, in fact I was trying to save the president."

White Phoenix has posed:
The words from Wanda ring true. Hople tilts her head, giving the impression she might have glanced at the other woman. It is hard to tell with her eyes lacking a pupil for the moment. "You are correct. We need to get out of here. They will have reinforcements on the way." With that Hope simply starts to rise into the air, through that opening that Magneto created. The plan had been to walk him out the door like a prisoner transfer but things have gone off the rails. They are in the contingency plan zone.

She rises up toward the surface as a rapid pace. But her intention hasn't changed. Once they are clear of the building, she's done talking.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Time is bought for the moment. The battle avoided in this confined space that can only allow for problems, and, should reinforcements arrive, for casualties. It isn't a thing that Wanda can allow. She has taken it upon herself the choices to get here and break her father out, for the greater good, but the taking of lives when it could be prevented? That is not a thing she would chose lightly.

She doesn't trust her father, though. "I will follow you," she tells him, her tones brooking no argument with this. If need be, she will make it so, taking him in hand to clear this space and allow what must be done to be done away from here. That she would prefer not to, that she would prefer to allow him the dignity of leaving of his own volition, is clear.

Still, she spares a moment to whispers softly, "Please, Papa. Let us go."

Magneto has posed:
    Magneto's hand reaches out once again as Hope rises up and with a simple motion, the flashdrive forgotten, a harddrive is plucked out of another computer with ease and is pressed against his back as he doesn't have pockets.

    "Alright Wanda, I will leave, but I need to go to Genosha with all due haste. I do have the feeling that your associate will stop me. I am sensing more than animosity towards me, which I admit is understandable."

White Phoenix has posed:
The figure in green and gold floats up the full seven stories and continues upwards into the air a good twenty feet. She hovers to the side away from the hole in the ground, her attention going to the figures below as she waits for them to join her.

A dark smile touches her lips as she reaches out mentally to her surroundings with her borrowed powers. Telepathy to verify there is no one nearby other than the three of them. Telekinesis to have a feel for the terrain and what is in it. Magnetic sense so she can pick up the metals in the area. Lightning flashes behind her, illuminating her floating form then striking the ground not far away with an explosion of thunder immediately filling the area.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda has the luxury of waiting now. She does not need to float, or fly. She can merely *be* elsewhere when she wishes. All she needs now is to wait until her father is on the surface, and once he is, she will be there too.

He's right, of course, Hope intends to stop him. Hope is angry. Hope is fury incarnate right now.

What he doesn't see is her own anger. How she, too, intends on stopping him. That she isn't here merely as a witness or a bystander, but as a participant. That she has no intention of letting him ever do this again. That these are his last moments of power as he knows them. Intent upon stripping him of everything that makes him Magneto, leaving him nothing more than the homosapiens he so despises.

His words do not sway her. She knows what must be done. It is only a matter of allowing these last few moments to him.

Magneto has posed:
    Magneto doesn't wait to float up back to the surface, where he'll let his cloth shoed feet rest on the ground for the first time in what seems like months. His eyes linger on Hope and then turn back towards Wanda where it slowly dons on him. "You are here to do me harm along with the red head. That is most unfortunate Wanda." The man says, lowering his hands and reaching out towards the ground, and several tendril's of metal limbs reach out from the ground and gather into large balls with a mirror shine held before his hands, that he then crosses before his chest.

    "The two of you are going to challenge me. What is your end game ladies? What do you hope to accomplish by stopping me?"

Scarlet Witch has posed:
It is with great sadness that Wanda looks to her father as he realizes that she is not here as his ally. Though, she sees no other way out of this. No other way to save the people that she loves.

"You could have done so much, Papa. Instead, you chose a path that will only lead to harm for us all. I can not let you continue. You will lose your abilities. They will be no more. I can not trust that you will not continue and harm us all. My love for you is great, but even that love has limits. I am so sorry."

White Phoenix has posed:
The floating figure above considers the interplay between the two. That was a surprise.

She knew Wanda wanted to stop Magneto but she had thought their plans were the same. So be it. Hope could do this on her own then. "Take away his powers? That's your answer?" A pickup truck to the right of her begins to rise into the air. "Taking away his powers won't stop him. He will still insight the mutants to do his bidding, no matter if he has powers or not. No, that is not how you will be stopped, Magneto."

She raises her hands up to either side, another car floating up out of the parking lot on her opposite side. "For the death of my father and crimes against mutants, I hereby sentence you to death!"

The two vehicles hurtle toward Magneto!

Magneto has posed:
    Magneto floats towards Hope as she starts to pickup one of the trucks and he looks towards Wanda. "She's right you know sweet daughter of mine."

    "I will still inspire an army to rise up and fight for themselves, defend themselves. Take the land and planet they are due by birth right of being stronger."

    Magneto holds his hands out as the trucks come down towards him and with a motion of his hands he casts the two trucks aside and over his shoulder to land inside the hole they came out of.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
His words, and Hopes, strike at Wanda. Hope sentences him to death, and even in that moment, her father does not bend, or show remorse. He is all the reasons why he must be stopped. Only..

Only to kill him is such a weighty thing. A thing of choices she is not sure that she can make. She had been willing to accept stripping her father of all that he was, even knowing that there was the danger of the charisma of the man. His inspiration.

And even knowing that this is true, she can not bring herself to Hope's answer. That solution bearing a finality the echoes hollowly within her. But if she does not stop Hope, then Hope will kill her father. The choices are binary: Let him live; Let him die.

In the end, it is the spark of compassion within her that makes the choice. Her belief that there is still good within the man that can be saved. Indeed, Wanda must believe this, or what is she? What are they all?

The choice becomes singular, and in the way all the paths had come together earlier and left but one path, so, too, in this. Of all the outcomes that there might be, Wanda can not choose to end her father's life. And to take away his powers now would only leave him vulnerable to the sentence Hope has proclaimed upon him. The only thing she can do is stop Hope.

"You leave me no choice," she whispers to the other woman. "I wanted it to be different."

Her world narrows down to but two: Herself and Hope. Her father has become meaningless.

White Phoenix has posed:
There is a red flare of light from the hole as the two vehicles do the imporbable--they come back up out of it and fly at Magneto from behind him.

Hope has Wanda's powers as well.

She reaches out her hand to the right side and a huge tanker truck there rises into the air. From the warning signs plastered on the trailer, it's carrying gasoline. "Wanda, you can't stop me. I can do everything you can now." And because she wills it to be so, fire begins to engulf the tanker as it floats into the air above her.

Objects around her begin to rise into the air, from a pebble to a mailbox to a gas pump. They begin to fly in the direction of Magneto, intent on getting him busy defending himself from the barrage.

Only when he is does she fling that flaming tanker truck, moments before it should explode...

Magneto has posed:
    "You two ladies seem to be having your own squabble. I don't want to interrupt the discussion between you two." The elderly man says as he starts to float away when a tanker truck is lifted in to the air while at the same time the pair of vehicles return from their decent into the black site only to be halted with a mere thought from the master of magentism.

    The Lord of Genosha throws up a wave of metal bits in a flurry of metallic rain towards Hope, trying to throw up a smoke screen in order for him to slip away from the fight. She's certainly far more powerful than him, and Erik has a lot of scheming and plans to concoct.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Magneto's efforts are an annoyance, the wave of metal bits stopped in their tracks, not even making it close to Hope, though they remain a wall of scattered bits and pieces hung in the air until slowly, the inevitable, and one by one they drop to the ground as if realizing that they can not exists in defiance of gravity.

But it is not Magneto that has Wanda's attention. It is Hope. Hope, who, as she says, has all of Wanda's powers.. Powers that are almost limitless.

Almost.

Wanda smiles, the thing somewhat cold and calculated as she shakes her head at Hope. "You forget. You may have my powers, but I have them too. And I know how to stop someone like you."

The smile remains. Grows, even. A soft laugh issuing from the woman. It's all so simple, so very simple what she must do. A hand lifted in utter negligence. "No more, Hope Summers. You have your powers no more."

It was the simplest, and most elegant of solutions. The way to stop Hope. The way to allow her father to live. And once she is done with Hope? She will turn upon her father and deal with him similarly. It is, she tells herself, the only solution. The best solution. Even if it is a solution that eats a bit of her soul and leaves it just that bit more tarnished. Leaves her just that bit more like those she would stop.

Still, with her words, she takes away Hope's powers. The powers she, herself, unknowingly gave the other.

White Phoenix has posed:
As the words are said, Wanda's powers are already working. Hope lets out a cry of protest, a noise that isn't really a word but manages to convey her frustration at the woman turning on her instead of letting her finish the task at hand. For a moment, Hope tells herself it isn't possible. No one can take away her powers, not forever! The cry is punctuated as the tanker explodes in a fiery blast that blankets the area. Only the three combatants are not touched by the debris.

An instant later, Hope's eyes go back to normal, wide with surprise as she tumbles out of the sky from twenty feet in the air.

As she falls, the sky instantly clears of clouds. The sun shines through, only a scattering of fluffy white clouds left behind.

Magneto has posed:
    Magneto doesn't say anything as a wise man who's trying to slip away from a fight and an unknown black site while wearing the clothes of a prisoners with a hidden hard drive stuck magnetically to his back. No, Magneto is using the firey explosion and the wash of metal shimmers to nearly make his form disappear into the atmosphere like a mirage. The mutant community really needs a savior to help win this war, and to do that, he needs to get back to Genosha.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
First there is the cold and calculating. The thing that lets her do what she must... And then there is the remorse. The tumbling body of Hope coming down through the air towards the certain abrupt stop of the ground. A stop that isn't likely to kill her, but will most definitely leave her battered and broken.

Which wasn't the intent of this, and now that Wanda is no longer acting to stop the certain death of her father, the cold chill of her resolve fades away, leaving only a remorse for what she has had to do. Along with the need to save Hope, even if there is a potion of her brain that is aware that this choice will allow her father to escape.

It is, like so many things, the decision between two poor outcomes, where there is only the heartbeat of time to decide between one or the other.

Her father she can deal with another day. He is the unpleasant that is likely to happen. Hope is the unpleasant that will. The thing she has the power to stop in this moment.

The air beneath Hope becomes a controlled updraft. A thing that embraces and slows the other woman's fall, and allows Hope to ultimately land upon the ground on her own two feet, with nothing more than a soft *bump* as she does so.

"I am so sorry it came to this," Wanda says, features drawn up in concern. "We can not become him. We can not stop what he has begun by being him. It makes us no better."

White Phoenix has posed:
She had resigned herself to the landing. It would hurt. It wouldn't kill her. Hope had her father's healing factor so she would recover. Although no, she didn't anymore. She had no powers at all.

This was going to hurt. A lot. And she might die. There was no scream as she fell. She had faced death before and she wasn't afraid of it. Her only regret was that she didn't achieve her goal first.

Then she was landing with a bump on the ground, the air itself lifting her back up and setting her there. Her gaze went to where the tanker truck still burned, to the fact that Magneto was long gone. Then she screamed.

Primal. Filled with rage and frustration. She had failed. He had gotten away and now, she had no powers to go after him again. She collapsed to her knees as she began to sob, burying her face in her hands.

Some of her first steps on this path had started with an explostion and tears. Now this chapter closed with the same.