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He had no connections to the boy who had broken him out of prison ten years before. There was debt, perhaps, but that was well covered by the time Erik swore not to kill the imp who kept prodding his magnetic field. There was mercy, in a sense, as he turned a blind eye to the wind flinging En Sabah Nur across the ruins. There was certainly tolerance as he listened to the boy's heartwhelming speech about family, a loss he himself would never forgive.

But there was no connection.

And yet the first scream….

It rattled Erik's concentration, piercing a heart that was no longer capable of compassion. He hesitated, looking back. A sense of protectiveness touched him, and immediately he saw Nina in the forest. Anger returned and he brushed the feeling aside as pity for the child who might have done some good in the world, if he had only seen the truth.

The second scream shook his guard. For an instant his magnetic forces wavered and he swore. Only Charles had distracted him with such magnitude, and back then it had been a friend who was dying.

There was no concern for the –

By hades, that third scream. His heart convulsed at the anguished cry and he looked over his shoulder, drawn against his will to that mop of silver hair, tangled in the grip of En Sabah Nur. The boy must be in his late twenties by now, and yet for an instant Erik saw him as a child, helpless for the first time in his life, facing death and unable to flee.

Running must have been the boy's life. Erik has witnessed only a few demonstrations of his mutation, but he imagined what it was like to fly without wings. To take that away; to cripple a gazelle and observe its pain….

Fury swelled against the Mutant who had given him power, and Erik clenched his fists.

There was no connection to the silver-haired imp. The loss of his wife and Nina had wrenched away the last of his hope. Though his chest beat with anxiety, it meant nothing.

Even so, against the thrall of his vengeance, Erik raised his hand.

And stepped forward to defend the powerless.