Boom! Boom! Boom!
The skyline of New York City shimmered beneath a sky ablaze with chaos—Doom-drones and Doombots swarmed the city's interior, their mechanical limbs ripping through cars and concrete walls alike in their effort to complete their mission.
In the heart of the chaos, Flux moved like the wind, his armor flickering with electromagnetic energy as he darted between the debris and laser blasts.
...
It had already been seven and a half-ish whole years since he had arrived in the Marvel universe.
Just days after taking down Apocalypse and destroying the Eye of Ages, Max—with Ororo and Logan backing him—convinced Charles to team up with Erik and the Brotherhood to pre-emptively dismantle the Sentinel program—on the condition that none of the X-Men would be involved in any assassinations.
This move brought the mutants together, exposed some conspiracies laid by the government, and led humanity to view mutants in a more positive light.
After some time, Max had got bored with just making money in the background, and eventually planned to travel around, leaving the Porsche behind in the garage at the Mansion, underneath a car cover.
Some of the places he intended to visit would simply turn the car into a burden.
Scott Summers tilted his head in a quirky way when Max asked him to watch his car, a gesture Max chose to ignore as he whistled and strolled off.
Cyclops had never quite gotten over their first meeting, still not particularly fond of Max. Even so, he was good-natured enough to keep an eye on the 993 for him.
He bid farewell to both Erik and Prof. X, who were now somewhat friends again at the mansion, shared one or two beers with Wolverine, and spent one more night with Storm before slipping away early the next morning.
Max used his future sight via [Destiny] and meta-knowledge of the inhabitants of this reality to assist countless heroes through this universe's take on many Marvel events, all while making a... more than substantial amount of money on the side by sticking to his usual methods—gambling and playing the stock market with his abilities.
Two years after parting ways with the mutants, Max somehow stumbled into a full-blown crisis in Wakanda, where he helped thwart a scheme to swipe three tons of vibranium—yes, tons. His heroics not only scored him Black Panther's 'eternal' friendship but also a couple of pounds of the precious metal, which he wasted no time requesting Wakanda's finest to melt down and upgrade his helmet and suit somehow.
Shuri, Wakanda's tech genius and Black Panther's sister, took one look at the two mysterious orbs and, after hours of puzzling over them, declared them both "magical" and "cosmic," beyond any chance of study.
Then, suddenly, literally right after the words left her mouth and much to her and Max's surprise, they floated and absorbed the vibranium without changing size, yet they had clearly consumed the superior metal—Max could feel the difference in how the spheres felt before and after.
He battled many other heroes and villains over the following years, weak and small, only taking a small loss from a rampaging, seriously pissed off Hulk. Max's broken arms and ribs healed the same day, however. Over 30 other heroes had participated in that one, luckily...
...
Many years and encounters with the likes of Moon Knight, The Punisher, Daredevil, Thor, Spider-Man, and the Ghost Rider later, Max found himself fighting a plot hatched by Dr. Doom alongside the Fantastic Four in New York.
"Flux! Cover me!" Reed's voice burst through the comms, taut with urgency but still totally brimming with determination. The interdimensional portal generator he had created began emitted a large, unstable, colorful vortex of raw power.
It was now hovering precariously above the street, having been stolen around 30 minutes earlier from Reed Richards' lab.
After being banged around in the chase from the Baxter building to here, it had activated, pulsing with iridescent light and spitting arcs of crackling energy into the air.
All around, Doom-bots advanced in endless waves, their singular purpose fixed on seizing the device and uncovering the dangerous secrets locked within Reed's latest groundbreaking experimental device.
Flux responded instantly, vaulting over a collapsing building's remains, landing beside Ben Grimm, who was wrestling with a pair of Doombots trying to grab the portal generator and whisk it away again. Max's eyes behind his visor flashed as he calculated trajectories, then with a grin, he activated his power.
"Hold it down, guys!" Mr. Fantastic took refuge behind some debris and pulled out another device, aiming it at the portal generator while trying to remotely hack the device surrounded by bots.
"Sure thing Reed. Ready for some fireworks, Thing?" Flux shot out a magnetic pulse, pulling a stray metal beam from the rubble and slamming it into a Doom-bot's midsection. Ben roared, swinging a massive fist that sent another especially large robot flying into a nearby car.
Flux suddenly had two long-barreled guns in his hands—the Desert Eagles.
CRACK! CRACK!
One railgun shot connected with the Doombot, shredding it and the car it had been punched into, while another shot left the Doombot about to jump the Thing without a torso—limbs flying everywhere, and one arm even bounced off the Thing's head!
The two laughed and exchanged a quick high-five, with Flux suddenly looking overhead.
"Hey, Torch! Nice 'Aura Farming,' buuuuuut, I think I've got you beat," Flux shouted, posing and then flicking his fingers as a surge of electromagnetic energy crackled around him, encasing him in white-violet energy.
Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, grinned as he flew past them with white hot fire trailing, igniting his body into an even hotter blazing inferno. "Hahaha, aura farming, huh? Haven't heard that one in a hot minute... Let's see what you can do when I turn up the heat!"
The Human Torch pulled his flames inward, melting Doombots left and right while competing to see whose energy effects looked cooler. Johnny always enjoyed teaming up with Max, aka Flux during a crisis; aside from Spider-Man, Max was his favorite superhero to hang out with when it came to hero work.
Flux spun into a quick, spinning kick—his armor glowing brighter as he unleashed a burst of electromagnetic energy, disorienting the remaining bots.
"Together, big guy," Flux yelled, turning back down to fly toward the Thing, his voice gravelly as usual and full of confidence.
Ben nodded, cracking his knuckles and flashing a grin. "You got it, Fluxy."
The two launched into a coordinated attack. Flux shot a surge of magnetic energy, pinning the robots in place, while Ben grabbed a chunk of debris, swinging it like a baseball bat. The resulting combo sent a wave of destruction rippling through the battlefield.
Flux's helmet hid a smile under the visor, eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "That's how we do it, Mr. Ben."
The air was filled with the scent of explosions and burnt alloy as the Fantastic Four and Flux leaned into the fray, totally wrecking every Doombot they came across.
"Watch the paint job, Johnny!" Flux yelled, his voice still as scratchy and grainy as ever, made worse by the earpiece and mic provided by Reed echoing inside his helmet.
The Torch squinted at the sleek silver plating Flux sported while wrapped in the white and purple colored energy reflecting from him and scoffed, "What color? Your suit is grey AF buddy...'
Flux's helmet did indeed look similar to Magneto's in a way, however, it didn't share the same crimson color at all.
A squadron of Doom-drones dove from the jagged skyline, their underslung red laser blasters tracing lines across the asphalt toward Flux. He didn't flinch even one bit. He didn't even raise his guns yet. Instead, he reached out with his mind, manipulating the handful of metal orbs orbiting around his shoulders.
The spheres reacted instantly. They didn't just accelerate—they blurred immediately.
With a sharp flick of his wrist, one orb shrieked through the air like a supersonic missile while rotating madly. It punched through the lead drone's chassis with ease. Without losing momentum, the orb ricocheted, caught in Flux's magnetic tether, and zipped through three more drones in a jagged, lightning-fast geometry of destruction.
"Efficient as all heck! Whew! That's what I'm talking about!" Flux exclaimed, the HUD on his smart glasses painting new targets in neon red.
A few months ago, Flux had requested a basic heads-up display be constructed for him by Reed after beating a uprising lead by Mole Man.
Just a day later, Flux was holding a pair of glasses with a classic, round style, like something straight out of an old kung fu movie. The frames could switch from clear to tinted at will and featured a full smart system with a targeting program—not quite as advanced as Tony Stark's Jarvis, but still incredibly useful, especially since he could wear them under his helmet and power them with his own bioelectricity.
He had thrown away the normal, not-super sunglass he had favored before without hesitation.
Six Doombots—the heavy hitters—pivoted toward him, their mechanical feet cracking the sidewalk. They raised their gauntlets, charging up concussive blasts.
"Pointless, you stupid bastard clankers." Flux grinned.
He slammed his palms together. A massive wave of electromagnetic force erupted from where his hands met—a shimmering dome of white-purple energy that caught the incoming repulsor blasts and simply... held them.
The air between Flux and the bots distorted, the raw energy of their own attacks vibrating and rotating around violently in his "Flux" field. He had actually gotten the idea when Han Xiao used a device while fighting the BGA(Beyond Grade A) Heber's Vanguard to contain and send an energy attack back to its point of origin in The Legendary Mechanic novel he was so fond of.
"Return to sender!"
He threw his arms outward. The captured energy, now amplified by his own power, screamed back at the bots. The force didn't just knock them over—it stripped the titanium plating from their frames.
As the bots stumbled, Max squeezed the triggers of his Desert Eagles. These weren't standard issue anymore mind you; they were now reinforced with vibranium—custom jobbies via Shuri back in Wakanda.
He didn't just fire bullets; he fired magnetically accelerated spikes of pure spite.
CRACK-BOOM!
Flux slid between the legs of a staggering Doombot, firing upward. The round entered the robot's "crotch" and exited through its head sensor in a spray of sparks and hydraulic fluid.
'Hahaha too sick! I feel like a Hunter fighting the 'Vex' in the game Destiny...too rad!'
He popped up into a backflip while grinning ear to ugly ear—the world slowing down in his perception thanks to his advanced reflexes. He could see the trajectory of every bolt, every stray laser.
Now mid-air again, he saw a drone aiming at Ben's blind spot. Flux didn't have time to aim. He simply willed one of his orbs of metal to intercept gesturing it to hurtle towards the Doom-drone's position randomly.
The sphere intercepted the fired laser mid-flight, the metal humming as it rotated at high speed. [Domino] took care of the rest. Several of the surrounding Doombots were hit by the refracted laser. They dropped like flies, some clattering harmlessly against the Thing's rocky hide.
"Nice catch, kid! But... what's with yer fallout always landing on my dome?" The Thing roared, crushing a Doombot's head between his palms like an overripe melon.
"Don't call me kid, Ben! I've been around longer than you think! Yah butt's crusty man." Flux shouted back, landing in a three-point stance.
The Human Torch streaked overhead, a living, breathing, fiery comet still working hard, not to clear the danger but to compete with Flux! "Less talking, more fighting, Flux! I'm at fifty kills and counting, oh Ben, he's right. Your Ass is crusty!"
"Both a ya, shaddapp!.."
'Damn, kids these days are bullies...' The Thing bounced away to take out his annoyance on some nearby Doombots.
"Oh, you want to keep count? I've gotten rid of more than 60 already. Try catch up after this though!"
Flux's visor suddenly glowed a fierce, steady purple. His energy-filled eyes could almost be seen individually through the visor—they were glowing so brightly.
He stood in the center of the intersection, surrounding himself with a swirling cyclone of metal debris—rebar, car doors, and discarded bot limbs. Using his magnetic mastery, he spun the scrap into a grinding whirlwind of jagged steel.
He was the eye of a metallic hurricane.
As a fresh wave of twenty Doombots charged, Flux didn't run at all. He expanded the field. The 'scrap-nado' expanded outward, the spinning metal blades slicing through the reinforced Doom-tech like a hot knife through butter.
Flux walked forward, a god of this metallic graveyard, his hands dancing as if he were conducting an orchestra of alloy carnage.
One Doombot, larger than the rest—a Mark IV Enforcer—tried to punch through the storm. Flux caught its fist with his silver gloved hand, his armor's joints whining as they locked into place via his electromagnetic energy.
"Sorry, I'm feeling a bit stiff, buddy," Flux remarked. 'Ugh, that one-liner was flat...'
He channeled a massive surge of high-voltage energy directly into the bot's arm. The machine's internal processors melted instantly, blue flames licking out of its eye-slits. Flux then used the dead, multi-ton robot as a flail, swinging it by the arm and smashing it into three other bots with a earth-shaking THUD.
He felt the hum of the portal generator behind him—the pitch rising, getting dangerous. He knew the clock was ticking, but the rush of the fight was almost drug-like, and besides, he already had seen how this panned out, that was why he hadn't simply grasped the machine and snuffed it with his power.
He took a few more pot shots at some bots, resulting in direct hits then spun his Desert Eagles, the barrels glowing cherry red from the friction of his rail-shots.
"Hey, Torch!" Flux yelled, pointing his guns at a parked fuel tanker near a group of advancing bots that somehow hadn't been blown up yet. "Light 'em up on my mark!"
Flux fired a dual-shot with regular bullets, not enhanced that pierced the tanks, and as the gas hissed out, Johnny dived. "Flame on!"
A moment later and Flux was already aiming his sight and hands towards the incoming bots too.
"Twin Dragons, Divine Explosive Fire Breath!"
The only reason that Flux had chosen to combo with the Torch like that was to yell out new attack names.
The resulting explosion was a masterpiece of teamwork—a pillar of fire directed and shaped by Max's magnetic fields into a localized firestorm that incinerated the final wave of infantry.
Max stood amidst the glowing red scrap and melting asphalt, his armor steaming. He checked his condition via his interface.
"Aura: Infinite," he chuckled to himself. But then, the air began to scream. Not the scream of a human, mutant or even a robot, but the scream of reality itself tearing open.
The portal generator had been hit by a stray blast moments ago, and began to pulse with an new, iridescent, sickening light. On top of that, another stray blast from another nearby falling drone—a second errant shot— had lashed out, hitting the control device Reed had been working on frantically, near the edge of the now-fully activating portal. The device exploded in Reed's hand, sparks flying as the portal flickered violently.
Flux's eyes widened beneath the mask, but not because he was surprised. 'Time to start the act... see you guys later.'
Flux suddenly shouted, his voice 'filled' with 'frightened desperation', "Reed! Look out!"
He activated his ability, pulling himself toward the device, kicking Mr. Fantastic out of harms way—and in the process, the kick ended up deflecting Flux right into the now stabilized pool of energy!..
Just like how he had seen/planned it.
A violent, thundering ripple tore through the air, and Flux vanished in a flash of shimmering light, leaving only a lingering hum and the swirling, closing portal behind him.
The last thing he saw and heard was Reed's frantic waving and shouting, "Flux—!"
And then, silence.