MARVEL : STARTING WITH GOKU TEMPLATE

The X-Jet cut through the night like a predator stalking its prey, engines humming with barely contained power. Below, the world sprawled in ignorant slumber, cities twinkling like scattered diamonds against black velvet. But up here, in the pressurized cabin thirty thousand feet above civilization, the weight of what they'd just survived pressed down on everyone like a physical force.

Charles Xavier's wheelchair rolled across the cabin floor with deliberate precision, each turn of the wheels echoing his methodical thoughts. His usually composed features were carved with exhaustion that ran deeper than bone—the kind that came from staring into the abyss and realizing it was staring back. He found Magneto stationed at the viewport, silhouetted against the cosmos, his reflection a ghostly double in the reinforced glass.

"Erik." The name dropped from Charles's lips like a stone into still water.

Magneto didn't turn immediately. His fingers traced the window's edge, metal responding to his proximity with microscopic vibrations. "You have that look, Charles. The one that says you've seen something that's shaken your precious worldview."

"When I had Director Fury in my hold—" Charles paused, the memory still fresh and jagged. "I took the opportunity to look inside his mind."

Now Magneto turned, his eyes sharp as broken glass. "And what did you find in that spy's head?"

Charles's hands gripped his wheelchair's armrests until his knuckles went white. "Ships, Erik. Fleets of them burning in the void between stars. I saw green-skinned warriors with faces that shifted like living clay, and blue-skinned fanatics who rain judgment on entire worlds from their cosmic thrones." His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "Humanity isn't alone. And they're not nearly as fragile as we believed."

The revelation hung in the air like a loaded gun. Magneto's jaw tightened, processing the implications with the tactical mind of a man who'd survived more wars than most people could imagine.

"We're not the only players on this board, old friend," Charles continued, his lifelong dream of peaceful coexistence suddenly feeling as fragile as spun glass. "We may not even be the most powerful."

The cosmic scope of what he'd witnessed—entire civilizations locked in conflicts that dwarfed Earth's petty squabbles—had rattled him to his core. Without the boy, without Ethan's impossible power tearing through SHIELD's forces like paper, they'd all be rotting in underground cells right now. The thought was a cold slap of reality. He'd gone to Sokovia to recruit a student; he'd returned with something far more dangerous and necessary.

Magneto was quiet for a long moment, his reflection merging with the darkness outside. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of absolute conviction. "I can work with you, Charles. We can face these external threats together." His eyes burned with familiar fire. "But understand me—my endgame hasn't changed. If the opportunity presents itself, I will still burn their world to ash and build our own from the ruins. A planet ruled by mutants would have no fear of these alien invaders you speak of."

The words weren't a threat—they were a promise. Magneto believed it with every fiber of his being. True safety could only come when their kind inherited the Earth, free from the backstabbing, shortsighted machinations of baseline humanity.

Charles managed a smile that was equal parts sadness and resignation. "And when that day comes, Erik, I'll be there to stop you. But until then, it seems we're fighting for the same thing—the survival of our people."

A fragile truce, born from the threat of mutual annihilation. It would have to suffice.

Nearby, Ethan had been listening with the focused intensity of someone who understood that adult conversations often determined the fate of children. He gave a small nod of approval. The Professor's telepathic abilities combined with Magneto's mastery over metal—one plus one equaling something far greater than two. Mathematics he could appreciate.

The tension in the cabin began to bleed away like air from a punctured tire. Logan, who felt like a man who'd had a century-old tumor carved from his soul, was actually smiling. Not the predatory grin of the Wolverine, but something genuine and human. His memories had returned—not all of them, but enough to know who he was, where he came from, and what he was fighting for. He had a purpose beyond mere survival now. He had a home.

He lit a cigarillo, the flame briefly illuminating his weathered features, and clapped a hand on Ethan's shoulder with enough force to stagger a normal person. "Alright, kid, I've made a decision. No more 'little monkey,'" he said, his voice carrying genuine affection beneath the gruff exterior. "From now on, I'm thinking... Ape Demon. Has a nice ring to it. Or maybe Donkey Kong?"

Ethan, feeling the first real relaxation he'd experienced in days, laughed—a sound that transformed his usually serious face into something boyish and bright. "Definitely Ape Demon. Or maybe Ape God? Donkey Kong is just corny, Logan."

Several rows behind them, Yuriko Koyama sat in isolation, watching their easy banter with the intensity of someone studying a foreign language. The fog of Stryker's brainwashing had lifted completely, leaving behind the sharp, painful clarity of her true memories. She was a martial artist from Osaka. Her father had been a kind, brilliant scientist who'd believed in helping people. Stryker had shown her fabricated footage—a lie wrapped in grainy video—of this man, this Wolverine, supposedly butchering her father in cold blood. For years, that manufactured hatred had been her only fuel, her only purpose.

Now she knew the truth. Her father's death had been an accident, a tragic consequence of Logan's desperate escape from Stryker's facility. The real murderer was the man who'd twisted her grief into a weapon. She looked at Logan—the man she was supposed to despise—and felt only a deep, hollow emptiness where her rage used to burn. He had found his peace. She was just... lost.

Logan caught her reflection in the window, recognizing the look of someone adrift in hostile waters. He'd worn that expression himself for decades. He walked over, his usual predatory grace replaced by something approaching gentleness. "Hey," he said, his voice unusually soft. "You got nowhere to go, the school's got room. The Professor won't turn you away."

It was the closest he could come to an apology—an offer of sanctuary in place of words neither of them were ready to speak.

Ethan nodded in agreement, understanding the tactical value as much as the human kindness. "Yeah, the school could probably use more teachers," he added. The stronger the school, the safer his new family would be. Simple mathematics.

As he spoke, a wave of dizziness crashed over him like a physical blow. The Firebolt broomstick and Invisibility Cloak, which had been resting on the seat beside him, flickered like faulty holograms and simply... vanished. The Harry Potter template was gone, its power fading like smoke in the wind.

Interesting, he thought drowsily as the world tilted and blurred around him. If I got a broomstick with that template, maybe next time I load the Goku one, I should try yelling for the Flying Nimbus...

Then consciousness abandoned him completely.

Professor Xavier looked over at the sleeping boy, this enigma wrapped in adolescent flesh. He still couldn't penetrate his mind, still couldn't sense the familiar electromagnetic signature of the X-gene. What was he? A boy with impossible strength, a tail, who could fire energy from his hands, transform into a giant ape, and then suddenly manifest wizarding robes and a flying broomstick? It defied every law of genetics, mutant or otherwise.

"Forget it," Charles murmured to himself, his voice barely audible over the jet's engines. "Whether he's a mutant or not is irrelevant." The boy fought for them. He protected their children. He was one of them. And besides, his brother Pietro most certainly carried the X-gene. That was enough.

"Sometimes, Charles, I truly envy you," Magneto said quietly from his seat, also studying the unconscious boy. "You stumble upon such exquisite, raw talent. It's a pity so much of it is wasted in your care."

"This is a school, Erik, not a military academy," Charles countered, his voice carrying the weight of a philosophical debate they'd had countless times. "Not every student wishes to be a soldier. They deserve to choose their own futures."

"And how will they choose any future if they cannot protect themselves from a world that wishes them dead?" Magneto's voice carried the bitter wisdom of someone who'd seen too much hate, too much death.

It was their eternal argument, as familiar as an old scar. Charles sighed, a faint smile touching his lips despite the weight of the night's revelations. He rolled his chair over to a small cabinet and retrieved a familiar wooden box—a chessboard, pieces carved from ebony and ivory, worn smooth by decades of use.

"Let's not speak of this anymore tonight," he said, setting the board between them with practiced ease. "How about a game, for old time's sake?"

Magneto looked at the board, then at his oldest friend. Slowly, deliberately, he reached up and removed his helmet with a soft metallic click, setting it on the seat beside him like a discarded crown. It was a gesture of trust he would offer to no one else—an armistice in their personal war.

A rare, genuine smile touched his lips. "I'll let you win, Charles."

"No, you won't, Erik," Charles replied, his own smile widening as he moved his first pawn.

And for a moment, as the X-Jet soared through the clouds high above a sleeping world, they were just two old friends preparing to play a game they'd been playing for decades—a game that somehow made the universe feel a little less vast and threatening.

Outside, the stars burned cold and distant, and somewhere among them, fleets of alien ships waged wars that would one day come to Earth. But inside the cabin, there was warmth, there was family, and there was hope.

It would have to be enough.