But before Magneto could continue he was distracted by a strange beam of light that was moving towards them. It was mostly white with a kaleidoscope of colours rippling within. The narrow beam of light descended from the sky and struck the floating section of the Baxter Building.
"What is this," he demanded.
"I do not know," Magik replied.
The beam dissipated and a figure became visible inside it.
Everyone looked shocked as Mark descended slowly until his boots touched the broken surface of the floor. His beard was thick, and his clothes were mostly torn away and ripped revealing his chest and legs. Dirt marked the fabric, and dried blood stained one shoulder.
His eyes remained fixed on Magneto.
Magneto's expression tightened. "Illyana," he said.
Magik stepped forward and thrust her arm outward in an attempt to open a portal beneath Mark's feet, she focused on the connection that allowed her to reach Limbo.
Nothing happened.
She tried again but once again nothing happened, her breathing grew faster as she felt nothing where there should have been something. "I cannot feel Limbo," she said, her eyes widening.
"Because it's gone," he said.
Magik stared at him, feeling herself tremble slightly. Apart from the beard and the damage to his clothing he looked the same as before, which unsettled her in a way she could not hide. They had trapped him in there at least an hour ago, and while she knew the time dilation could be finicky at best he should still be an old man at the very least.
Mark looked straight at Magneto. "It's over Eric."
"No... no I don't think it is..." Magneto said as he reached out with both hands and a moment later Mark slammed into the ground, dragged downward by an invisible force. Deeper and deeper he went through concrete and then metal then pure earth and stone as he was dragged down to the earths core, had this happened to him before he went through that portal he might not have been able to stop it.
But he wasn't the same as he was before.
With a grunt Mark stopped himself from falling through the ground any further. The he pull was immense, stronger than anything he had ever felt. He realized Magneto must have linked his own body's magnetic field and linked it directly to the Earth.
The entire planet was trying to drag him to its core.
Luckily it seemed the effect wore off quickly and Mark was able to rocket back up out of the ground and go straight towards Magneto, he then reached him and tore the Geocore off of him and crushed it in his hands.
"You're too late. It's over." Magneto laughed.
Mark didn't understood what he meant at least until he turned around and saw it, in the distance, a massive hundred-foot wave rose from the harbor, racing toward the city. The result of the earthquake that Magneto had summoned.
"Millions will die," Magneto declared. "And with this act, the war begins."
Mark turned, staring at the oncoming tsunami, trying to think of what to do, but every second he floated there was a second it came closer. Not being able to wait any longer Mark flew straight across the ruined lounge toward Johnny and Sue. He landed hard in front of them. "I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I need to borrow something from both of you right now."
Johnny and Sue stared at him, still held tight by the metal coils around their bodies. Before either could speak, Mark placed one hand on Johnny's shoulder and the other on Sue's arm. A bright glow spread from his palms into their skin. The cosmic rays that had changed them flowed out of their bodies and into his. Johnny and Sue both grunted in pain as the energy left them.
When he was done Mark stepped back, his body practically humming with fresh energy. He looked up at Magneto and shouted, "Flame on!"
Fire exploded around him in a roaring blaze. He shot straight up into the air faster than any of them had ever seen. The floating lounge shook from the force of his takeoff.
Magneto floated thete in the sky and Mark stopped directly in front of him, flames roaring around his body like a second skin. "Mass genocide is never the answer Eric," Mark said, "You of all people should know that."
Magneto's helmet hid his expression, but his hands tightened into fists.
Mark did not wait for a reply. He turned and shot away from the city, flying south over the water at full speed. He pushed himself harder than he had ever pushed before, he pushed himself so fast that the air around him began to burn making him look like a meteorite. He reached out to the energy inside him and touched the faint energy of the Bifrost and he used it to propel him forward at even greater speed. He added Johnny's flames at maximum power, pushing the fire out behind him like rocket engines.
The combination made him accelerate so fast that he flew around the entire world in only ten seconds.
Continents blurred beneath him and before he knew it he completed the circle and aimed straight down into the Atlantic Ocean just ahead of the massive wave that was racing toward New York.
He hit the water at full speed, the impact sent a wall of spray hundreds of feet high and at the same time vaporised it and turned it into steam. Mark kept going, carving a deep trench through the sea. He flew deeper and faster and the trench grew miles long and hundreds of metres deep in seconds. Water rushed into the new chasm from both sides making the main body of the tsunami lose its forward power as it poured into the gap. The wave slowed and dropped as the trench absorbed its energy and broke its shape.
Mark burst out of the water at the far end of the trench. He turned back and flew towards the city before he faced the wave and raised both hands. Sue's force-field power flowed through him and a huge, invisible barrier formed in the middle of the remaining tsunami. He pushed the barrier forward with all his strength in the shape of a wedge. Blood burst out of his nose and eyes as the wave crashed against wave split and curved inward on itself. The two halves crashed together and collapsed, the height reduced to nothing more than shin-deep water that washed harmlessly onto the shore.
The city was safe.
Mark hung in the air for a moment his chest heaving. Every muscle burned and his vision blurred. He had never felt this exhausted in his entire life. The cosmic energy, the flames, the speed, the force field, all of it had drained him completely. The flames on his body went out and he dropped like a stone and hit the ground on the edge of the harbour.
Back at the floating lounge, Magneto stared at the shore where the wave had vanished. His jaw tightened, and his eyes moved across the skyline as he watched the water flow calmly along the streets, and as he watched the buildings that should have been crushed still standing the metal around the lounge shifted slightly as his grip on it changed, and the coils that held Sue, Johnny, Ben, Reed, Natasha, and Colleen squeezed tighter for a moment, which made several of them flinch even though they tried not to show it.
He turned his head toward them slowly. "You can blame him for this," Magneto said, he did not raise his voice, yet all of them heard it clearly. "You can tell yourselves that you were saved by a hero, you can tell yourselves that you have won, but now you can remember what it costs when you stand in my way."
Sue pulled against the metal around her wrists, and forced herself to keep her breathing even as the metal tightened around him. "Magneto," she said, "It's over... you've los."
Magneto looked at her as if she had said something pointless. "Silence woman..."
Magneto lifted one hand, and the air around them filled with small fragments of metal that rose off broken furniture and bent fixtures, and the pieces hung there in a rough circle as if he had turned the whole room into a weapon. "You can blame Mark for this," he said again, and his eyes flicked toward Sue for half a second. "You can blame him for interfering, you can blame him for giving you hope, and you can blame him when you die."
Sue's stomach dropped, and she tried to raise a force field, yet the metal tightened snd made her yell out in pain.
Magneto's fingers tightened slightly, and the metal restraints began to squeeze against all of them.
Then a red blast hit him from the left.
The impact shoved him back through the air, the circle of fragments scattered as he jerked his arm up to stop himself from slamming into the wall of a neighbouring building.
Everyone was shocked and looked up just to see a jet cutting across the sky and hovering above the floating platform. Scott stood on the open ramp with his visor lit, and fired again, the blast hit Magneto in the chest and pushed him backward through the building giving them some space.
"Get them out," Scott shouted to the others.
The X Jet hovered closer to them and then bodies dropped from the ramp in quick sequence, landing on the broken lounge floor and the exposed concrete near the torn wall. Ororo floated down first and sent a gust of wind out across the room right away as she raised her arms pushing all the metal away. Wolverine landed beside her with his claws out. Colossus dropped with a heavy step that cracked tile. Beast landed near Sue and Johnny while Jean landed near Reed and Natasha.
Scott dropped last, and landed near the center, then he turned his visor toward Magneto again.
Magneto's face twisted with anger and floated out of the building with his hands out he moved the metal around him.
Scott shot him again with another blast of his beams only for magneto to block them with large sheets of metal. However it did give time for the other X-men to free the captives and let them get ready for what was likely to be a shit show.
Reed was the last one to g tfree as Jean pulled the coils off him, and he immediately moved to Sue's side, and put one hand on her shoulder for half a second. "We need to stop him," Reed declared.
"We will, but we need to deal with the others too," Sue replied.
And if by Magik, she appeared near the far side of the lounge with her sword already out, she moved towards them as Mystique stepped out of another portal beside her and much to their dismay Juggernaut arrived too from a different portal that led to the streets; he stepped fully into the room and rolled his shoulders as he looked at Ben and Colossus.
"Round two, then I'm going to fuck that blonde bitch bloody," Juggernaut said, and he grinned.
"Niet if I have anything to say about it." Colossus moved first and met Juggernaut with a straight punch that hit his chest and pushed him back a step, and Juggernaut answered with his own punch that sent Colossus sliding across the floor.
Ben backed him up and charged hitting Juggernaut in the ribs, but Juggernaut turned with the impact and slammed his forearm into Ben's head. Ben stumbled back, then he roared and hit again, but this time Colossus grabbed Juggernaut from behind and allowed Ben to hit him with a furious combo of punches straight to his stomach.
Johnny stepped forward and raised his hands.
"Flame on," he said, and fire covered him though it was noticeably less bright than usual, he threw a stream of flame toward Magik, she swung her sword through it and split the fire in the air, and it broke into two streams that rolled along the floor on either side of her.
Ororo moved her hands and pushed wind into Johnny's fire, which increased their potency and made them roar as they tried to engulf Magik's position, Magik stepped back and raised her sword again and stepped through a portal avoiding it and appearing behind them.
Meanwhile Wolverine lunged toward Mystique, and Mystique shifted her shape mid-step so she became a shorter woman making Wolverine slash through empty air, she then changed back and kicked him in the face and followed through with another kick at his knee. Wolverine roared and slashed at her again furiously only for mystique to continue to avoid him.
Magneto had managed to send Scott flying with a beam of metal and was now floating midair in front of them. He raised his arms and this time the entire lounge groaned as metal in the structure itself began to shift, beams bent while bolts tore free. Sue threw a large force field dome between Magneto and the others just in time for the first wave of debris slammed into it and bounced off, yet the dome shook and rippled under the impact.
"Give me an opening!" Scott shouted.
"Got you!" Sue replied.
Scott then moved to the edge of the dome and fired a blast through a small opening that Sue created for him. The blast hit Magneto and pushed him back, and for a moment it looked like they might keep him on the defensive.
Then Magneto lifted one hand and pulled the metal frame of a broken wall and turned it into thousands of thin needles that he slammed into the dome. Some of them found the small opening and impacted Scott's body making him cry out and fall to the ground. Magneto didn't stop his onslaught there however, he continued to pelt the forcefield again and again until Sue was panting on her knees with blood running down her face from her nose.
"Erik," Charles said through the speaker of the jet, "it is over. You have been beaten. Stand down."
Magneto snapped his head toward the jet, and his face twisted further, his breathing grew heavier as his anger pushed past his control.
"Over," Magneto repeated as he laughed humourlessly. "No, Charles, it is not over."
He looked down at the smashed on the ground that Mark had broken, then he lifted his chin and looked back at the heroes in front of him. "I do not need the device to start this war," he said. "I merely wanted it, and it served its purpose, yet I do not need it to end this city."
Magneto then floated upwards more out and stretched his powers as far as it would go.
Sues eyes widened as she realised what was about to sharpen. She stepped forward and she tried to push a force field around him like a cage, but her head started throbbing when she attempted it and she fell to the ground. Reed rushed to her side to check that she was okay. "Sue! Talk to me!" Reed said in a panic as he shook her.
"We need to stop him!" Sue shouted getting everyone's attention.
Magneto lifted both arms higher.
Across the city below, steel frames began to tear apart. Building supports bent and broke. Magneto was tearing the metal from the foundation of every building and structure, it was slow, but if he completed what he was about to do every building would no doubt collapse and thousand upon thousand of people would die.
Sue looked toward the city and then back to Magneto, and she forced her voice steady while panic pressed at her throat.
"You have to stop!" she shouted. "You are killing innocent people."
Magneto's eyes locked on her.
"I am ending a lie," he replied. "You wanted a world where mutants stay quiet, where we accept what you allow, where we thank you for scraps, and where we die in the dark when you decide we are too dangerous. You will not have that world!!!"
Scott fired again but the blast hit Magneto's shield that had started to surround him, and Ororo pushed lighting towards him but the metal surrounding him conducted it away from him.
Meanwhile Ben and Colossus finally forced Juggernaut back for a moment and managed to throw him off the building. But none of it mattered in the end as they couldn't get close to Magneto. Metal kept rising, and it kept twisting into walls and rings and moving blades, any time someone tried to step in, the space filled with something sharp and it forced them back.
Charles' voice came again through the jet speakers. "Erik," he said, "you are not thinking clearly, you are not helping our people."
Magneto turned his head toward the jet, and his anger pushed higher.
"I do not need your approval Charles," he said, and then he lifted one hand toward the city again.
The rest of Magnetos companions joined him as they stepped on metal platforms and floated up next to them. Meanwhile a large building frame tore free from its base several blocks away, and it rose into the air in broken sections, then those sections slammed into a neighboring tower, steel punched into glass and concrete, and debris fell to the ground making people scream.
Johnny looked at Sue and then looked back at Magneto, and he spoke through clenched teeth.
"We can't get close what do we do?" he said.
Ben wiped dust off his face and growled. "Maybe I can throw you," he said, and tried to step forward again, and another coil of metal snapped up at his feet and forced him to stop.
"You will not stop me," he said. "No one can."
(AN: So Mark has returned and he has been in Limbo for an unknown amount of time, during that time he has been at war with the demons and likely slaughtered millions of them. Probably feasting on their flesh too. Anyway hope you enjoyed.)
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