Pre-service: Shatterstar, anti-mutant protesters, and Erik
In stark contrast to Shatterstar, Erik understood only all too well the hatred that ran rampant throughout the protesters who had dared to show up on this day. He had seen it before. Too many times than he liked to recount. Humanity liked to think that as a whole, people had risen above and past such past atrocities as the Holocaust and Nazi Germany but as Erik looked around he saw naught but a reflection of those dark times. Given the opportunity the protesters would be just as brazen against mutants as the Nazi party had been against the Jews, but Erik would be damned if he allowed such a thing to happen today.
And that was why he was himself poised among the crowd of protesters, almost waiting for someone to do something stupid. He had little desire to reveal his true identity but if it meant forestalling any violence or worse on a day meant to honor the greatest friend that he ever had than he would not think twice about it.
Like a lot of other people around him, he drew his own eyes to the tall, long haired man who walked with the gait of a warrior. Purposeful and graceful in every step. Erik was near enough to catch the conversation that he was having with the ignorant woman, and took note of the mention that he had been created. He had himself made mutants out of humans so he knew it was possible, but it was a little alarming all the same to hear that someone else was capable of the task as well. And even more so in consideration of the fact he knew nothing of this 'Arize' character.
When the tall man seemed to look around, Erik found himself near to him and decided to answer the question he had posed to the woman.
"God does not hate that which he creates. But like so many other things, man seeks to supplant what is the will of God by their own design. Using it to justify their hate. For if God were to hate mutants, the acts of these protesters now would not not be born of hate but divine righteousness."