Berlin, The Schmidt Research Division
When the approval letter from the Führer's office arrived, bearing the heavy, wax seal of the Chancellery, Ernst didn't jump for joy.
He didn't shout.
He didn't offer a toast to the portrait of the dictator hanging on the grim, concrete wall of his temporary office.
He simply read the document once, his eyes scanning the gothic typescript, absorbing the authorization codes and the budget allocations.
He folded it neatly, creasing the edge with a thumbnail, and placed it in his breast pocket, right over his heart.
A cold, satisfied smile touched his lips.
It wasn't a smile of happiness.
It was the mechanical expression of a grand complication falling into place.
'Phase Two is a go.'
From that day forward, the laboratory became his world.
It was a sterile, subterranean complex carved out of the bedrock beneath the city, smelling of ozone, disinfectant, and fear.
Convoys of trucks arrived daily, their engines rumbling low in the courtyard above, delivering crates of specialized glass, centrifuges stolen from occupied universities, and chemicals synthesized in the darkest corners of IG Farben.
They also delivered "volunteers."
Pregnant women selected from the camps.
To the rest of the staff, the zealous SS doctors and the true believers of the Party, Ernst was a patriot.
They saw a workaholic, a man who slept on a cot in his office, obsessed with creating the next generation of Aryan youth to populate the Thousand-Year Reich.
They whispered about his dedication in the mess hall. They admired his ruthless efficiency.
They were wrong.
Ernst wasn't working for the Reich.
He held no love for the swastika, nor for the screaming ideology that was currently burning Europe to the ground.
He was working for himself.
While his official reports detailed minor nutritional adjustments and prenatal vitamin cocktails designed to eliminate hereditary weakness.
His real work was happening in the shadows, in the restricted secure wing where only he held the key.
He was isolating rare genetic markers, hunting for the elusive sequences that separated the mundane from the miraculous.
He was stimulating the endocrine systems of the mothers, using synthesized compounds to flood the fetuses with unprecedented levels of growth hormones and adrenal enhancers.
He was trying to force evolution.
He wasn't just building soldiers; he was building a stockpile.
He extracted and froze the most potent enzymatic secretions, hoarding them for a future project that would require raw biological fuel.
Every vial was labeled, cataloged, and hidden behind a false wall in the cooling unit.
The Reich will fall, he knew, watching a centrifuge spin its hypnotic, silver blur.
He knew it with the certainty of a historian, not a prophet.
The winter in Russia was coming.
The Americans were mobilizing.
The super-soldier serum was already being tested.
'Let them have their war,' he thought, adjusting the dial on a microscope. 'My work will outlast it.'
His mind drifted back to the last few days in Poland.
The trip to see his father, Sebastian Shaw, had been a calculated risk.
It had required pulling strings and calling in favors that he could have used for equipment.
But it had paid off.
Magneto's mother was alive.
She wasn't walking around, of course. She was frozen in cryo-stasis, a sleeping variable in a glass coffin, hidden deep within a bunker that Ernst had designed himself.
That was a piece of leverage that even Professor X, with all his telepathy and moral high ground, wouldn't be able to account for in the future.
It was the ultimate bargaining chip for the Master of Magnetism.
Ernst rubbed his eyes, tired but wired.
The stimulants he took to stay awake were beginning to make his hands tremor slightly.
He sat in his office, the only light coming from the desk lamp, illuminating a large map of the world spread out before him.
He had saved a piece of the board in Poland, but the board was massive.
The game was global.
In his previous life, before he woke up in this body, before he was the son of Sebastian Shaw, he had been an avid reader of comic lore.
He remembered the wikis, the crossover events, the retcons.
He knew that while Europe and America were breeding grounds for Super Soldiers and Mutants, the flashy, kinetic demigods of the atomic age, the East held a different kind of power.
The intelligence reports on his desk, scattered among biological data sheets, hinted at it.
"Unexplained atmospheric disturbances in the Himalayas."
"Reports of a warlord in rural China wielding ten rings of unknown origin."
The West had Science. The East had Magic.
Ernst traced a finger over the map of Asia.
He knew the legends were real.
Kamar-Taj, the home of the Ancient One and the Sorcerer Supreme. Kun-Lun, one of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, guarded by the Iron Fist.
The Hand, an ancient ninja order worshipping a demon beast.
In those lands, they didn't rely on X-genes or serums.
They used Chi.
Ernst frowned. Chi was potent, but inefficient.
Historical data suggested that the ambient magical energy of the world had been decaying for centuries, forcing the eastern mystics to retreat into hidden enclaves like Shangri-La or Nanda Parbat to conserve their power.
That was good for him.
It meant the sorcerers would stay in their mountains, fighting their invisible wars, leaving the geopolitical stage to men like him and Shaw.
For now.
Let the wizards have their temples, Ernst decided, turning away from the map.
His mind was already running simulations.
He spent the morning with Shaw and the boy.
For three days, they had run non-invasive tests on the future Master of Magnetism.
Ernst was thorough. He took samples of Erik's blood, bone marrow, and hair follicles.
He needed to understand the X-Gene at a molecular level if he was ever going to replicate it, or counter it.
"The boy is a battery," Ernst murmured, reviewing the charts.
"His bio-electric field is off the charts."
"He's a weapon," Shaw corrected, standing by the window.
"And thanks to you, he's a weapon we control."
"For now," Ernst said. He packed his briefcase.
"I have to return to Berlin. My research requires constant supervision, and Hitler is getting impatient for results."
"Go," Shaw nodded.
"The Reich needs its genius."
Before leaving, Ernst handed Shaw a thick, sealed envelope.
"What is this?" Shaw asked.
"Insurance," Ernst replied.
"The war won't last forever, Father. Germany is strong, but the Allies have Stark. This envelope contains blueprints for patents: penicillin refinement, synthetic rubber, jet propulsion designs, and shell company structures in Switzerland and South America."
Shaw raised an eyebrow, weighing the heavy envelope.
"Money," Ernst said simply.
"Enough to buy countries. Use our current resources to secure these assets now. When the smoke clears, regardless of who wins the war, the Hellfire Club will own the peace."
Shaw looked at his son, a genuine look of pride crossing his face.
"You really do think of everything."
"I try."
"Then I have a gift for you, too," Shaw said. He snapped his fingers.
The air in the room suddenly shifted. There was a smell of brimstone and ozone.
BAMF.
With a cloud of red smoke, a figure materialized in the corner of the room.
Ernst didn't flinch, though his heart hammered against his ribs.
The man was tall, dressed in a sharp suit that clashed with his appearance. His skin was a deep, crimson red.
His ears were pointed, and behind him, a long, spade-tipped tail flicked back and forth like a cat's.
—-
Authors note:
Me here. I have analyzed the physics of 'Writer Motivation.'
It turns out, my typing speed is directly correlated to the number of shiny blue rocks (Power Stones) in my inventory.
200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
10 reviews = 1 bonus Chapter