CHAPTER 61

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I dodged the metal spears while my superior agility but it soon proved tiresome as Magneto's ability was at the apex of what versatility could do.

Spears, blockades, giant arms etc. Magneto was spamming different range of attacks and the only thing that kept me on was my explosions. I couldn't use laser beams for long because he would just cover himself while also sending out attacks from my sides to throw me off. 

I ducked under a car and conjured a destructive ball, fuck the radiations, and sent it out but like always it was blocked by the two levitating cars but the force of the explosion did push Magneto back a bit. 

I left the cover of the car and formed ice constructs mixed with fire constructs while I sent at Magneto who was still recovering his bearing but was unable to connect with his as he flew higher while covering his flight path with some metals. 

Eric on his own wasn't strong. Hell I could one-shot him if my fist connected to his metallic mug but his ability had an annoying aspect of preventing that. All I needed was to get close to him and he seemed to know that which was why he kept his distance and attacked with long range projectiles. 

I saw the javelin he sent at me and without having the time to make solid constructs, I used my laser beams and overcharged the fuckers as it sent out a wide beam way bigger than my head as it pierced through the projectiles and zoomed in on Magneto in a flash. And that was when Magneto did something that surprised me. 

He stretched out his hands and the space between him and the beam rippled but the beam didn't through but was redirected. 

'Tch! I forgot he could control magnetic fields and not just metals. Or rather the doesn't control metals but their magnetic fields and use their polarities to manipulate them in anyway he wants.'

It was easy to forget that Magneto's ability was based on magnetic fields and not metals because metals had more pronounced magnetic fields. 

I stop myself from thinking as metals vines shot towards me which I used my ice to freeze but it didn't hold for long and they broke free and snaked their way towards me. 

The fact that he was in the air while I was on the ground heavily handicapped me, and also the fact my modes of attacks were easily nerfed when I was airborne also didn't help my case. For me to win this stalemate, I had to somehow bring Magneto to the ground but that could easily be me shooting myself in the foot since I was sure his attacks would increase in potency if he was near the ground to feel more metals. 

As the cat and mouse game Magneto and I were playing continued on, a bold idea came to my mind but the downside was that if I so much as missed a step I'm my calculations, Eric would kill me in an instant. 

But then again, gamble. I was becoming an addict to that concept and the worrying part was that the stakes I betted on were always high risk. 

So with my plan, a shoddy one at best with the chances of success creeping towards the negatives, set, I took in a deep breath with my mouth and the moment I exhaled, large amounts of steam gushed out as I exhaled. 

I did not know if he could still sense me within the steam with the iron present in my blood but I didn't give him that time either as I sent out hail of ice spikes from different directions and rained it on him. 

With my senses peeled, I jumped unto a nearby rooftop while alternating between the ice spikes and the explosive projectiles. Reaching an high enough altitude, I conjured up another destructive ball and sent it towards him. With the cue of the explosion and with my senses and x-ray vision to help me, I sent out a flame whip and latched it on one of the nearby metal constructs Magneto had near him and pulled it and it immediately sent me careening towards Edgy McFlighty while I also used explosive bursts from my legs to go faster. 

The moment I got near him, he seemed to sense me as the surrounding projectiles started to rattle and point in my direction but I had already gotten close enough. 

I cocked my right hand backwards as I directed all the energy in body towards it, making me look like a shooting red star from a distance, and punched at the block the metal master hastily formed.

It was an explosion followed by a sonic bang as the punch broke through the sound barrier and sent Magneto streaking through the sky and aiming for the ground but I wasn't done with him yet. 

I sent a gust of flames that exploded the moment they made contact which sent Magneto crashing into the ground. I used my flame whips to swing from building to building like a more amazing Spider-Man and used my ice to surf as soon as I landed on the ground to Magneto like the cooler version of Frozone. 

I took off his helmet and looked at his mangled arms and a broken knee to see that he was fully knocked out with some probable internal bleeding to boot. 

I was about to freeze him and take him with me when I sensed something entered my perception range. Whenever I was in a fight, I had made an habit of always having my senses spread out which was the only reason I knew that something was coming and-

I was immediately sent flying when something crashed into me. I didn't have to see who was that before I sent out ice lances at it but he was able to dodge everything and even suckered punch to the face before he zoomed out. 

He was gone the moment I turned but wasn't fast enough as I saw the shades of the silver blur he left. 

"Fucking speedsters." I let out a mirthless chuckle before I stood up to see that he took Magneto with him. 

"Fuck!"

I also lost his helmet which the little quick thief took with his dick of a father. Hey at least it's not Wanda right? Thank God for small miracles indeed. 

That crazy chick would have folded me like a pretzel. But how the hell is Quicksilver here? Shouldn't he be like a kid or something right now? What is he like 13 or 14 years old and he's already running around with Magneto and his little group doing little quick acts of terrorism?

I shook my head to get rid of those thoughts as I made my way back to the plaza by walking. When I got the I saw Bucky and Steve, both sat on the floor as the waited for me with some knocked out and maybe killed metas by their side. 

"So how'd it go with Mr. 80's villain?" Bucky asked me as I came near him and sat down with them on the ground.

"You know he's a real 80's villain right?" I chuckled. 

"That's why I called him that." The three of us shared a laugh. 

I then tried to call Trask but the line was dead. A pit immediately formed in my stomach, not because I cared for the guy but he was the one who made the damn Mold. 

We left the area of the fight and made our way to the old base but it seems like we were too late. 

All we found was Trask dead on the ground. Nothing of value was taken and when I hacked into the security cams we saw what happened. 

A sentinel came to the base while we were out and killed Trask. 

We were on our way to leave when we saw Logan and Storm coming our way. 

I wasn't in a mood to humor them so I just walked past them and plopped myself inside the car. I thought hard about where Trask could be but I didn't have a damned clue. I knew he had a base of sorts back in the States where he did his experiments on Logan but for fucks sake I didn't even know the name of the place or where it was. The only thing that stood to note was that there was a lake and was it a dam, that Jean had to stop in order for them to escape which started the whole mess with the Phoenix. 

The Phoenix might as well not be my problem but damn if the Sentinels wasn't. The Sentinel event was an X-Men apocalyptic shit and I wanted no part in it but the fucker knew who I was so it stands to reason that I would be a top priority target once he made his upgrades on those doom bots. 

The X-Men were still little kids wet behind the ears so there was no way of counting on them stop this and neither were the Brotherhood reliable. I mean, Days of Future Past was a movie for a reason. I wasn't confident nor was I arrogant enough to think that I could face off against those killer bots that were in the movies on my lonesome. Having allies was not the problem as those allies could end up dead if they went up against the Sentinels. Killer robots were apocalyptic events and there were a lot of movies to back up this fact. 

I was still deep inside my thoughts when the someone knocked on the windows of my hijacked car. I raised my head up only to be met be silver hair that adorned a dark skinned face. I sighed before I opened up the door to let her in. 

"Something wrong?" She asked me as I fought back the urge to groan. 

"What makes you think so?"

"You looked like you were deep in thought plus the look on your face when you left the base clued me so." She said as I let out another sigh. "What happened?"

"Nothing much actually. Just that the dude who released those robots has gone under and would one day come out with their enhanced version to end metahumans, no biggie. All in all, it's just another day in Moscow." I said but the sarcasm dripping in my voice were like diamonds on a rappers neck. 

She had the decency not to laugh since it wasn't a joking matter either. 

"What's his name?" She asked me after a while of silence. 

"William Stryker."

"Hmm." She hummed at the name before she turned to look at me. "I've been hearing you say something about metahumans. Who are they?" She looked genuinely curious. 

"It's nothing. It's just what I call mutants."

"Why do you call them so?"

"It's something that came to me a while back and also something I decided on a few hours ago." She still looked confused so I explained my reasoning to her. "When I first met Trask, the scientist who's dead inside that base, I asked him why he hated mutants and he went on about how they were a plague, a disease, and like their name, a cancer to the human race. Just like the way people react instinctually with negativity when tell them someone is a Witch, they immediately have what they have been told or read as their first reaction which is never the case. What I'm saying is that the name is the first step to recognition. Just like how companies give their brands catchy names…"

"You also want us to change the way we address ourselves so as to deviate from the preconceived notions of what mutants are!" She completed my statement with widened eyes that made me feel a bit awkward for a bit. 

"*Cough* That's the gist yeah. The names mutants and Homo Superiors have already been sullied so people who rally under them would be met with the same hatred and disgust their predecessors planted. That's why the elders say that a good name is its own reward." She looked at me with those glowing orbs of hers with what I could feel as admiration. 

"That's… that's a revolutionary idea!" She practically exclaimed which confused me. Sure I knew what I was saying and I knew it was something that could be called a revolution but the way she beamed up at the idea seemed… a little too much. 

"Is it?" I asked unsure. Not ever knowing what I was unsure of. 

"It is! If anything it is at least a step into the right direction!"

Ah so that was it. Unlike me who 'know' how mutants are treated, she and others were the ones who lived through it. The fear and shame of being a mutant I would never have felt if the public one day called me out for being one was what she and others grew up experiencing. And for someone like her who wants nothing more than a sanctuary for the mutantkind, such an idea was a welcoming and inspiring surprise for her. Sometimes all that was needed was an outsiders perspective. 

We talked for a while about the metahumans, as she started to call them, and life at the Mansion amongst other things which did well to take my mind off the plaguing thoughts I had before she came. Sto… Ororo was a very nice person to talk to. 

"Okay out with it. The reason you keep talking about the Mansion and the Professor is that you want to say something to me right?" I looked at her with a small knowing smile. 

She looked surprised for a second before a guilty smile came to her face. "I suppose I wasn't as subtle as I thought and for misleading you like that, I apologize."

"It's alright. No foul done, so what's it?"

"Do you think you can forgive the Professor for what he did?" She asked me with an unsure tone.

I knew she was going to ask something like this. "You know, the first person who tried to brainwash sent me out on a mission to Russia where I killed an entire innocent family of three just to prove how effective the brainwashing was." I told her the truth mixed with a little lie. Technically I was brainwashed when I took my first mission. 

The expression I expected was one she had – shock. It was an expression most people would get if they are told something they didn't expect, but I didn't end there. 

"Bucky over there," I pointed at the metal-armed mercenary, "was brainwashed for over a decade." The look of horror on her face was shocking but then I hit her with the real kicker. "And you know the funny thing about it, he killed one of his best friends and his wife and made it look like a car accident just because he was ordered to. And that isn't even counting the other lives he's took just because someone had the remote control to his brain. So tell me, do you think I overreacted the way I did, or I didn't react enough?"

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The stones have been coming in sparse amount lately. I'm definitely not feeling good about that, so do something about it, will you?

We are at chapter 60 now, I'd hope some of you will consider dropping a review on the story so far.

Here's to a fruitful week. Love y'all.