"Finally! I thought you were going to stare at that tombstone forever." Scott commented.

"I had a few goodbyes I had to make." Joseph replied as he cleared his mind of the image of Magda's grave.

"Feel better?" Jean asked. She watched him carefully for any signs of the monster that she knew lurked within.

"Yes, I think that I learned a lot today about what I have to do. Perhaps there is a hope to forge a new beginning." Joseph mused.

"Well, if y'all are finished discussing it, I'd like to head back and get some sleep." Sam prompted.

"Of course, we have a long road ahead of us." Joseph replied. He turned to leave when a plasma bolt bored into the ground at his feet. Instantly Joseph extended his senses using his magnetic power. Yet, he could sense nobody in the immediate area. This wasn't conclusive as he had recently learned that it was possible to build a cloaking device against his powers. If this was an ambush then it wasn't unreasonable that the attacker might have taken some precautions. Joseph reinforced his personal shields.

"Hello, Magneto, it has been a long time. When we last met you led the X-Men and I was given the choice of joining or dying. Now that choice is yours to make." Alex Summers said as he stepped out of his place of concealment. His voice carried strange undertones, as if he was on the verge of breaking out into hysteria. His eyes were strange and it was clear that he was not altogether well in the head. He wore an odd version of his old containment suit with lines of metal banding it in a familiar pattern. He was wearing one of the stealth suits the government had designed to enable an assassin to escape automatic detection by Magneto's powers. "I knew that if we placed a watch here you would come sooner or later. You always did show an inordinate amount of affection for that human whore you picked up in Auschwitz and her treacherous brats. Still, I'm glad it brought you here to face me and my new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants."

"Alex! Listen to me, you don't know what you are doing. Somebody has messed with your head. You don't want to be doing this" Scott shouted as he went into a crouch and began to scan for additional opponents. Alex laughed at his naive brother.

"I guess that intelligence doesn't run on your side of our family. If leaving you to die when I could easily have saved you didn't convince you that I am serious in my mission, then I don't know what will. Learn the lesson from our last meeting -- opposing me means death. I have come for Magneto, Scott. You don't have to get hurt if stand aside and let me have him. I will take him -- one way or the other."

"That might not be as easy as you claim." Joseph said as he stared into Havok's crazy eyes. He remembered seeing the same madness in Erik's eyes. In his eyes.

The two stared at each other until the silence was broken by an optic blast slamming into Havok. He was immune to the energy effects of the blast but the momentum knocked him over. As the harness Havok was wearing was destroyed, Joseph suddenly was able to sense him with his electromagnetic senses. He was right, there had been a cloaking device in his uniform. Acting with the reflexes of a trained fighter, Cannonball blasted past the rest of the group, grabbed Alex and flew him into a tree. Havok gasped with pain. He felt the constricting vice of Jean's telekinesis grab him.

"Last warning, Scott." Havok forced through gritted teeth. "Stand aside and leave Magneto to me or reap the consequences of your actions. You are messing with forces beyond you now, brother. You are the past and I am the future."

"Joseph is an X-Man now and, in any case, we would never leave somebody to a band of butchers like your new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Listen to me, Alex, you are sick and we are going to help you." Scott said in a steady voice. He concealed well the turmoil of emotions that flooded through him. He had never quite emotionally recovered from Alex's attempt on his life and now he was being forced to face the reality that his brother had become truly twisted.

"No, Scott! Jean! Sam! Get out of here, NOW! It's a trap!" Joseph said as he extended his senses further. He couldn't sense anyone but Havok was far too confident. Cyclops still thought of him as his kid brother and not the dangerous madman that he was.

"I don't sense anyone." Jean said, her brow furrowed in concentration as she searched for thoughts. She didn't realize a more powerful teleath was blocking her scans.

"Joseph, leave this to professionals. Sam, find something to restrain him with." Scott ordered. He would bring Havok back and see ifthe Professor couldn't help him recover his sanity.

"Goodbye, Scott." Alex said. For a second, a hint of filial pity shone through the madness. An instant of regret for what was about to happen. A rifle barked and Scott felt something strike him in the center of his body just below the ribs. He was suddenly unable to breathe and fell heavily to the ground. He couldn't feel his legs and the pain suddenly began to flood in. Jean looked down in horror at her husband's back. A hole the size of two fists had been torn out by the rifle slug. She dropped her concentration in shock as his pain flooded across their psychic bond and began to fall. This saved her life as a plasma bolt that was aimed at her chest merely grazed her and sent her spinning into unconsciousness. Cannonball moved like a thunderbolt as he followed the path of the shot. Joseph stepped back and covered the two injured X-Men with a Magnetic bubble.

"I don't know what you hoped to gain by this madness, Alex, but it ends here. I'm sorry, boy." Magneto reached for Havok with his power and was staggered as a blazing bolt of plasma impacted on his shield. Heat and light blazed through it and he felt a blast of searing pain. Havok had modulated the beam in some way to enable a small portion of the blast to penetrate his shields. The rest of the burst bounced off his field and when blazing into the distance.

"Does it hurt, Magneto? I never used my powers properly against you. I'm betting you can't screen out heat, light and plasma all at once, can you?" Havok boasted, unaware that Magneot remembered both his scientific training and how to properly use his powers.

"You should have killed with the first blow." Joseph replied as he created a massive voltage difference between Havok and the ground he was standing on. The mad mutant screamed and fell, spasming as the sudden electric current flowed through his body.

"Please don't damage him, Mangeto. I went through quite a bit of effort to acquire him and I wouldn't want all that effort to have gone to waste." A low, grinding voice said from the shadows. The Black Beast walked into the clearing dragging a beaten, bloodly and shivering Cannonball behind him. Sam had made the mistake of stpping and had been no match for the incredible speed and strengh of his opponent. The Black Beast hadn't even had to call on the rest of the Brotherhood for help in beating the young mutant half to death with a few stratigically placed blows.

"I knew that Havok wouldn't have been stupid enough to attack me on his own. Who are you?" Joseph asked. He was aware that he had a limited amount of time to get Scott and Jean to medical help. He stepped back and noticed the ground was blood-soaked. He had even less time than he thought if Scott was losing blood this quickly.

"Wouldn't you like to know, Lehnsherr. I'm giving you a once in a lifetime offer to return and lead the Brotherhood as once did on this world. A chance to be on the right side instead of championing weakness and medicority.. You know, as well as I do, that the humans are not fit to rule this planet. It is our time, our age and they are keeping us from realizing it. Join us, Magneto, and lead your people into glory." The Black Beast edged closer to Magneto hoping to prevent Magneto from frying him the way he had fired Havok -- who merely screamed hoarse cries as the impact of the burns on his body sank in and he went into shock.

"Once I thought as you do but I have learned better from experience. I will not fall into that madness again." Joseph gestured and bands of virgin iron were torn from the earth, binding the great Beast in place.

"You don't understand. I can't have you joining the X-Men. A reformed Magneto is just the sort of symbol that I don't need right. Now a dead Magneto, one killed by evil humans would be just the sort of martyr I could exploit." The Beast laughed. Magneto might have mad eit out if he had run immediately but he was trying to protect the two two Summers' and was unwilling to abandon Cannonball. He would teach the master of magnetism to regret this weakness.

"Idle threats do not impress me. I am beyond them." Joseph lifted the three X-Men up and and turned to leave. He screamed as he felt another power reaching out and tearing through his magnetic fields. His mind staggered under a telepathic attack the like of which only Xavier had ever managed. He barely managed to set his charges on the ground gently as the combined telekinetic and telepathic assult ravaged his mind and body.

"I don't think you are beyond me." A young boy stepped into the light. His brown hair had a shock of white in it and a metal device had been bored into his skull. His clothes were dirty and deep lines of pain had been etched on his young face. His eyes were cold and dead -- like the soul ahd been sucked out of them.

"Ah, Magneto, may I introduce you to Nate Grey -- my newest recruit. I think it is only appropriate that you know the name of the man who kills you." The Beast flexed his arms and the metal binding him shattered. "You should have listened to Havok, Magneto. I'm going to enjoy watching you scream. As for your companions, they will make excellent recruit once I've destroyed what remains of their personalities and free will." The Beast smiled and laughed as he watched Joseph fight with all of his passion against the telepathic and telekinetic powers of his newest protege. It was quite clear that the master of magnetism was losing. Small wonder -- Nate Grey was the strongest mutant he had ever seen.

He watched Magneto struggling as he wandered over to the helpless X-Men. They would make wonderful new recruits -- even if he would have to end up burning out Jean's brain the way he did to Nate. Sad but true, it was hard to use drugs and torture to brainwash telepths. Oh well -- one potential probelm dead, a group of new X-Men and revenge for what Lehnsherr had done on another world. All in all, it was a good day.