He hadn't expected Fenris to be a threat.
Posturing, grandiose children who somehow saw themselves as better than him. They were Nazis without power, pathetic creatures trying to duplicate a glory that had never truly existed. He didn't take them seriously at all.
Until he was distracted by Charles' seizure, and the girl broke free of the prosecutor's grasp to touch her accursed brother. Until they smashed in the catacomb wall, and the water came rushing in.
Six months ago he had fallen, fallen forever, plunged into the water and struggled against drowning for hours that had seemed like years, before finally being mauled by a shark and then rescued by Lee. Six months ago he had treaded water with broken bones and metal clothes he hadn't the power left to remove, lungs burning, ribs shattered, no way of reaching safety, no hope of survival short of a miracle. Six months ago he had struggled in the endless expanse of ocean like an insect drowned in a bottle, grasping at life until all hope was gone and all that was left was the mindless drive to live that wouldn't let him rest, and he still now dreamed of the water, the water--
He froze. Only for a second, remembering water and the agony when he'd tried to use his powers to save himself, but he froze, and then the water slammed into him and Charles both, knocking the breath from him, dragging them down.
Too deep underground to go up. The water too fierce, pushing too hard; it would take too much strength to fight the current. Better to let it sweep him, grab Charles, and follow the current until he could reach a place to break free.
Only he couldn't find Charles.
With his eyes, he couldn't see at all-- there was no light down here in the rushing water. His magnetic senses should have been able to see the net of fire that was a person's nervous system. But there was nothing. He expanded his "view"-- nothing. Pushed up, pushed down, propelling himself to the edges of the circular conduit he was rushing through, arms and legs flailing out in search of a human body. Nothing. He zipped ahead, faster than the current could move, and did the same, fishing desperately for his friend. It was utterly dark-- the edges of the aqueduct had enough iron ore in them to shimmer faintly to his magnetic senses, and he himself was a spot of brilliance, but he couldn't "see" a magnetic field as something that illuminated darkness. Things needed to shine of themselves; nothing reflected magnetism without being partly magnetic itself. The water was suffocating him, his body becoming leaden and no air in this tube at all, but he couldn't leave Charles. Had to find him, had to--
--all his concentration, expanded his perception of electromagnetism to the point where all matter suddenly jumped out as faint spots in different colors, and there was nothing the size of a person, nothing that could be Charles, as far as his senses could see, around corners and behind him as well as in front and to the sides, nothing--
--survive! breathe! survive!
He smashed upward, shattering stonework and scattering earth in his wake. For several moments he lay sprawled on the ground, in a manicured park that he'd just more or less wrecked, gasping for air. With basic survival assured, his second imperative reasserted itself. Mind-to-mind, he screamed desperately-- not to Charles, who had been mind-blind from drugs and pain before this had happened, before even the trial, but to Rachel, who'd heard him this way once before. I can't find Charles! Help me!
//Where are you? What's happening?//
He showed her the last moments of his memory, showed her his desperate search for Charles.
//On my way!//
From here, he continued to scan the network of aqueducts for something, anything resembling a human body. Nothing. But he did see that the ducts forked in several places near where he and Charles had been swept in. Charles could have been sucked down a different fork, and Magnus would never have known.
He found himself praying to the God he'd rejected that Charles was alive still, that a telepath could find him.
But when Rachel landed, it was with a grim look on her face-- the one he knew well, the dark resignation of one who had lost too many to death and understood the cruel reality of it. "Magnus, I can't find him anywhere," she said. "I didn't feel him die, in my mind-- but I've telepathically scanned the whole city, and no sign of him."
"Is it possible-- you didn't sense him die; it is possible, is it not, that he lives, and is too deeply unconscious for you to see him?"
She shook her head sadly. "It's possible. But he's such a powerful telepath, and I know his mind well enough, that it's not likely. It's more likely he was that deeply unconscious, when he-- and it's been five minutes, Magnus. If he was in the aqueducts, without air, in his condition--"
"I know, Rachel. Do not lecture me!"
"I'm sorry."
With effort, he controlled his temper. Rachel's loss was as great as his own, if Charles was dead-- this was the second time she'd lost Charles Xavier. At least he hadn't died the way he had in Rachel's time-- shot by the very people he'd given his life to protect. Here, he'd been killed by criminals, a fitting death for a superhero. Not that it helped.
He recognized that he had just mentally admitted that Charles had been killed. It was almost impossible to think otherwise. Rachel would have detected him, if he were alive, and if he were alive and deeply unconscious when he went into the catacombs, by now he could not be alive any longer. What had it been? Only five minutes? If they could find Charles, they could possibly revive him-- though in his condition of ill health, it wasn't likely. But how could they find Charles in the aqueduct system, in the bare few minutes they had, if he was clinically dead or deeply unconscious and therefore unreachable to telepaths?
"I will follow the forks from our point of origin," Magnus said. "If there is any hope at all--"
"I'll get the X-Men. Maybe they can help."
"Do," Magnus said, and rose into the air. Already he knew there was no hope. But he had to try. He had to try, until he could convince himself that Charles could possibly be dead.
And there was nothing.
He scanned the aqueducts, even broke a few open to enter them and swim down them, looking for anything shaped like a human body. He illuminated the water in front of him with the brightest light he could generate. Nothing.
And he returned to the garden, alone. Rachel and the X-Men might still be looking; Magnus knew they'd find nothing. Or, by miraculous good luck, they might find a body to bury. It wasn't possible for them to find anything else.
Because he had hesitated. Because he'd underestimated Fenris. Because he was still afraid of the water.
He closed his eyes. Bitter tears had blinded him long ago, but he'd forced himself onward anyway, forced his eyes open to keep looking. No point to that anymore. Magnus bowed his head.
My weakness. My shame. My failure.
Oh, Charles, I am sorry. I am so very sorry.