The X-Men (The O5) | VS the Brotherhood of Mutants

The Blackbird settled low against the Brooklyn waterfront, its engines reduced to a muted mechanical hum beneath the distant traffic and river wind outside.

The others were already gone: Scott, Jean, Bobby, and Warren had deployed minutes earlier, spreading across the surrounding industrial blocks and rooftops while the aircraft made its final approach.

Only Hank remained inside, one hand moving across the instrument panel as the small transmitter concealed on you blinked steadily across one of his monitors.

"Tracker is transmitting perfectly." Hank glanced over from the controls. "Scott has everyone in position, and I shall remain close enough to follow your signal until you're safely inside."

A second display shifted. "Once they believe you've arrived alone, I'll move the Blackbird farther out."

The rear ramp lowered, revealing cold night air and the mostly abandoned freight complex beyond. Hank's expression became slightly more serious. "If anything changes unexpectedly, do not assume Scott hasn't noticed."

Then, with considerably less ceremony: "And preferably avoid being kidnapped again."

Outside, two people waited beneath a weak exterior light. A woman in a dark coat held a clipboard beneath one arm. Beside her stood an unremarkable man in a gray suit and gloves. Though his eyes lingered on you a fraction too long.

The woman smiled as you approached. "You're on time."

Behind you, the Blackbird remained exactly where you had left it. Until you looked again. An empty waterfront. No aircraft. Only black water, scattered lights, and the distant Manhattan skyline.

"Come on." The woman gestured toward a side entrance. "He doesn’t like waiting."

The door opened before she touched it.

---

Inside, the complex felt strangely maintained. Almost too maintained for its age. Fluorescent lights hummed above clean concrete corridors. A security guard glanced up from a desk as you passed. Somewhere deeper inside, machinery seemed to vibrate faintly through the walls.

The man remained close behind.

"Long night?" The woman asked casually.

The man smiled. "Longer than it looks."

Something about the corridor shifted. For half a second, rust showed through the painted walls before disappearing just as fast.

"Jason." The woman glanced sideways at him.

"My mistake." Though the smile never left his face.

The next hallway was older.

Pipes exposed overhead. Paint peeling in strips. The security desk you had passed moments earlier no longer seemed to exist when viewed back through the doorway.

The woman stopped pretending soon afterward. Blue spread across her skin like ink beneath water. Red hair loosened around her shoulders as borrowed features dissolved into something sharper and familiar: Mystique.

"Better." Raven rolled one shoulder. "I hate holding somebody else’s posture too long."

Jason’s face changed more subtly. Not a full transformation like her, but the illusion around it stopped—gray hair, leaner features, and an amused, remarkable expression. Mastermind.

"You weren’t supposed to notice that quickly," Jason said.

Raven pressed the call button beside a freight elevator. "You’re slipping."

"I’m multitasking."

---

The elevator arrived with a heavy mechanical clang, but the ride upward took longer than expected.

Jason leaned against one wall as though the entire situation bored him. Raven watched the floor indicator.

Three.

Five.

Seven.

Then nothing.

The numbers vanished altogether.

"You really should stop trusting displays," Jason remarked.

Raven exhaled through her nose. "Ignore him."

Finally the doors opened. Beyond them waited a broad former dispatch hall overlooking the warehouse floor below. Broken windows had been boarded from within. Old control consoles lined one wall. Steel beams crossed the ceiling overhead.

The massive man you faced before, Blob, stood near the far side of the room, enormous arms folded across his chest. Crouched atop a railing above him, a far lankier man, Toad, watched.

And at the center—Magneto. Crimson and violet armor caught the low industrial light. His helmet remained in place this time.

"Thank you for coming." Erik’s voice carried easily through the room. "Under less complicated circumstances than our last conversation, I had hoped."

Raven moved away from you. Jason did the same. Magneto’s gaze remained fixed forward on you. "You have had time." A quiet beat. "Time to consider what you saw. What I told you."

His hands remained loosely clasped behind his back. "I did not invite you here to repeat myself."

However, something metallic clicked somewhere high above. Erik’s eyes shifted slightly—not toward the sound, but toward the ceiling.

Then one corner of his mouth moved. "Nor, apparently, did Charles send you here alone."

"Step away from {{obj}}." Scott’s voice cut across the room as red light flashed from an upper catwalk. Cyclops emerged from behind a support column.

Jean appeared along the opposite side.

Bobby stepped into view near the lower access doors, frost already spreading beneath his boots.

Above, Warren dropped from the rafters with wings opening wide enough to stir dust through the room.

Raven’s expression hardened, Jason only laughed. Magneto did not move.

"Scott Summers." Erik sounded almost pleased. "Thorough, as always."

Scott’s visor narrowed. "You expected this."

"I expected caution." Magneto finally looked toward you. "I would have thought less of all of you otherwise."

Then Jason snapped his fingers.

Half the room changed to his command. Empty platforms became occupied. Doors that had seemed sealed were suddenly open. Figures emerged from maintenance corridors and loading access points below: operatives working for Magneto. It was more than Scott had accounted for.

Jean’s eyes widened.

"Jason—" The illusion shattered.

"Move!" Scott reacted immediately.

The hall erupted as ice tore across the floor. Warren dropped from above as Toad sprang to meet him, while Scott’s optic blast hammered into Blob hard enough to shake the room.

Jean turned sharply toward Jason. "Mastermind—"

His illusion flickered under the pressure of her telepathy.

Jason grimaced. "How... annoying."

Raven stepped beside him, her yellow eyes settling on you.

"Then leave her to the others."

Jason’s expression brightened. "Gladly."

The room distorted once again. The battle suddenly seemed farther away, voices stretching strangely through the hall as several identical Ravens appeared around you.

Somewhere among them, the real Mystique smiled. "You came here to meet us."

Jason’s voice followed from no obvious direction. "So let's not waste the opportunity."

By the time the fighting spilled beyond the dispatch hall, much of the freight complex had already stopped resembling anything built to last.

Burst pipes sprayed across shattered concrete. Sections of catwalk hung crooked above the loading floor, while ice covered entire stretches of steel and brick. Somewhere outside, sirens had begun gathering along the waterfront.

Scott’s optic blast drove Blob backward several feet before the massive Mutant dug in again. "Again!" Scott barked.

Bobby’s ice surged beneath Blob's footing at the same moment Warren swept low overhead, forcing Toad away from another railing.

Across the fractured floor, Mastermind staggered as one of his illusions tore apart around him. "Would you stop doing that?" Jason snapped toward Jean.

Jean barely looked at him as her attention was elsewhere. "I’m a little busy!" Both hands remained raised as twisted steel, broken masonry, and part of a collapsing exterior wall hovered above the loading yard instead of crashing into the streets beyond.

Another distant siren joined the first. Then a white searchlight swept across the broken windows. A helicopter. Soon, another.

The Blackbird descended toward the complex from above the river. "I believe our operation has officially lost the benefit of subtlety." Hank’s voice cracked over the communicator to everyone.

The aircraft advanced another few yards before... stopping. Its engines climbed sharply, but nothing. "Hm." A pause. "That would be Magneto."

High inside the damaged structure, Erik stood beside one of the broken windows. One hand remained slightly raised. Outside, the Blackbird hung motionless in the air despite its engines fighting to move.

"They’re pushing us back." Mystique approached from behind, glancing toward the battle below.

Erik’s gaze remained on the floor beneath them. "I am aware."

Raven followed it, and her expression changed. "No."

"We are finished here."

"Then we leave."

"We will." Magneto finally looked toward her. "Release him."

Raven’s eyes narrowed. "You know what happens once he starts."

"Yes."

"He doesn’t care who’s in front of him."

"That is precisely why he is useful."

For perhaps the first time that night, Mystique hesitated. "Erik—"

However, his other hand lifted, and somewhere beneath the complex, metal screamed. Locks twisted. Reinforced bars bent outward.

Then something struck the other side of a containment door.

Once.

Twice.

The third impact tore it completely free.

---

The sound rolled through the entire building. Even the fighting slowed.

"What was that?" Bobby asked.

Another impact answered him. Concrete cracked along a far wall before exploding.

Then, an enormous figure stepped through the dust. Massive crimson armor covered a body that seemed almost impossibly large, far larger than Blob. A domed helmet concealed most of his head as broken masonry fell harmlessly from his shoulders.

He looked around once. Then grinned. "That all Xavier sent?"

"Everybody clear!" Scott’s visor flared intensely before firing a ruby beam straight to the armored giant's chest.

He slid backward half a step. That was all.

"My turn." The grin widened before slowly starting forward.

Jean’s eyes sharpened as she reached for his mind, but was met with a sharp recoil. "I can’t get through the helmet!"

"Good." The giant laughed. "Would’ve been disappointed if Chuck taught you everything."

Bobby froze the floor beneath him, yet the armored figure shattered straight through it.

Warren dropped from above. "Wrong direction, big guy!"

One enormous arm swung towards Warren, who barely twisted aside before the impact clipped him hard enough to send him crashing through a stack of wooden pallets.

"Bobby!" Scott shouted.

Ice erupted into thick restraints around the giant’s legs, but he kept walking.

"Seriously?!" Bobby stared.

The restraints burst apart without any effort. "You kids done warming up?"

Then his attention settled on you. "Oh." His shoulders rolled once. "You’re the one he was interested in."

The floor cracked beneath his first step. Then the second. He accelerated with horrifying speed, leaving you barely enough time to react before he rammed into you headfirst like a moving building.

Your feet left the ground, tearing through scattered machinery and striking a distant structure hard enough to crater the concrete and disappear beneath a collapse of dust and broken steel.

Silence lasted barely a second until the armored giant laughed. "That’s it?"

Across the wreckage, Scott was already trying to reposition the others. Jean released the suspended debris outside and turned. Bobby pulled himself upright. Warren dropped back to the floor with one wing dragging for a moment before he forced it open again.

The giant ignored all of them, staring directly toward the crater where he flung you. "Come on!"

Your hand pressed against the fractured ground at last as you started pushing yourself back up. The giant planted both feet, lowered his shoulders, and grinned. "Now we’re getting somewhere."

Juggernaut did not slow down. He tore through another exterior wall and burst onto the waterfront access road, concrete exploding behind him as police scattered from a hastily formed barricade.

"Move!" An officer shouted as gunfire cracked uselessly against crimson armor.

Juggernaut laughed. "That supposed to stop me?"

He lowered one shoulder and charged.

A police cruiser disappeared beneath the impact, flipping violently across the road before another vehicle erupted into flame. Juggernaut ran straight through the fireball without breaking stride.

Above, helicopter searchlights swept across smoke and shattered brick.

Then you struck him from the side, your power flaring around the impact to finally force Juggernaut several feet off-course. However, his enormous fist answered and drove you backward across fractured pavement.

"Better!" Juggernaut barked. "Now hit me like you mean it!"

---

Inside the immobilized Blackbird, Hank's hands moved rapidly across three separate displays. "Extraordinary..."

Sensor data continued scrolling while the aircraft remained suspended against its own thrust. "Jean's telepathy is being obstructed by the helmet. Direct concussive force produces displacement, but remarkably little meaningful injury. And every time he establishes forward momentum..."

Hank's eyes widened. "We've been approaching this incorrectly."

His communicator opened to the team. "Scott. Stop trying to overpower him."

"I'm listening!"

"We must immobilize him simultaneously. Deny him momentum from every available direction." Another display shifted toward readings associated with you. "And {{user}}'s Evolutionary Energy has previously demonstrated structural reinforcement and physical manifestation."

Hank hesitated.

"If {{sub}} can reproduce that deliberately—rather than instinctively—it may be capable of anchoring him."

"Then we give {{obj}} the chance." Scott answered immediately.

Back down across the ruined loading yard, Scott regrouped the others beneath sweeping helicopter lights. "Jean, full telekinetic restraint. Bobby, take his footing away and don't let it recover. Warren, wait until he's slowed before you engage physically."

His visor glowed.

"Hank, when you get an opening, get down here."

Scott's attention settled on you. "We'll hold him." A beat. "You finish it."

Juggernaut emerged through the smoke ahead, rolling his neck. "You all done planning?"

Scott turned. "To me, my X-Men!"

Jean immediately thrust both hands forward, slowing Juggernaut's charge. Her boots scraped backward across concrete as invisible pressure wrapped around his enormous frame.

"He's—still—moving!"

Ice exploded across the pavement beneath Cain's feet. Bobby layered it faster than Juggernaut could shatter it, spikes and frozen restraints rebuilding almost as quickly as they broke.

Scott likewise fired a continuous ruby beam that hammered into Juggernaut's chest.

Juggernaut roared and kept advancing.

Warren dove quickly, catching Juggernaut's left arm with both hands as his wings beat furiously to pull backward. "Little help?!"

Above them, the Blackbird's hatch opened, and from it Hank dropped several stories down. He crashed into Juggernaut's right side hard enough to crack the concrete beneath them, immediately locking both arms around his massive limb.

"Delighted!"

For the first time all night, Juggernaut had finally stopped.

"GET OFF ME!"

Jean trembled violently, a thin line of blood appearing beneath one nostril as broken machinery and slabs of concrete lifted around her. She hurled everything forward.

Scott never stopped firing.

Bobby never stopped freezing.

Warren and Hank held on with as much of their physical strength as possible.

And behind them, you dropped both hands against the fractured ground. Nothing happened at first, but then, your power spread beneath your palms. Light raced through cracks in the concrete. Buried rebar and broken steel beams began to shake before dragging across the ground. Shattered concrete tore upward around Juggernaut's legs.

"What the—"

Your energy did not simply surround him. It bound itself through the wreckage, and then onto him.

Concrete folded into thick restraints reinforced by steel. Glowing seams of your Evolutionary Energy locked each fractured piece together, wrapping his legs, waist, torso, and arms.

Juggernaut strained, managing to crack one restraint. But three more formed over it.

"No!"

You forced both hands downward, and the entire structure answered as Juggernaut was slammed into the earth.

The pavement collapsed beneath him, burying Juggernaut inside a crater of concrete, steel, and blazing energy.

And finally... silence. For several exhausted seconds, nobody moved.

Then the crater rose. Not Juggernaut, but the ground itself. Concrete ripped free in one enormous slab, the old and reshaped metal screaming as the entire restrained mass lifted into the air.

And hovering over the ruined complex and you six, was Magneto. Erik's gaze lingered first on Juggernaut's restraints. Then on you.

"Remarkable."

Searchlights crossed his armor. Beyond him, cameras turned upward. Magneto looked around. "Look carefully."

Police lights filled the waterfront. Civilians watched from behind barricades. Helicopters circled overhead.

"Tonight, Charles Xavier's X-Men ceased being a secret." His attention returned to you. "Consider my offer once more."

A pause.

"The next time we speak, I will not send an invitation."

The slab carrying Juggernaut rose higher, then Magneto disappeared into the night.

What remained below was six exhausted X-Men standing amid a devastated Brooklyn waterfront. And every spotlight had turned toward the six of you.