General Ross had made extensive preparations to hold Alcatraz Island. Not long after he gave the order, two armed helicopters came roaring in and fired nearly a hundred tear gas canisters at the bridge. Fortunately, they were on US soil; otherwise, what came raining down from the sky would have been air-to-ground rockets.
Tens of thousands of Mutants crowded the bridge, turning its otherwise spacious six lanes into a crush. Under the effects of the tear gas, the undisciplined, poorly organized crowd began to panic. Some tried to retreat while others pushed forward, and in the jostling, the first victim was soon trampled.
Magneto surveyed the helicopters circling overhead and woodenly stretched out his hands. His magnetic control didn't actually require any physical movements, but reaching out was simply a human habit. He used the gesture to help focus his thoughts.
The moment Magneto reached out, the helicopters began to deform. With a metal groan that set teeth on edge, their hulls caved inward piece by piece. Then the rotor blades atop the fuselages began to clatter strangely, sparks bursting from their roots before they abruptly ground to a halt.
Within seconds, the two most advanced armed helicopters in the world came crashing down at an angle, their momentum carrying them into the sea.
The tear gas still hung over the bridge. A whirlwind rose among the Mutants, gathering the fumes and sweeping them into the sky in thick clouds.
The military's first wave of attacks had been brushed aside with ease.
Watching the footage relayed by the drone, Xiang Qian sighed in appreciation. "Sometimes, I really do feel like Mutants have been blessed with extraordinary gifts."
After losing two helicopters, the United States Air Force would surely think twice before sending any other aircraft into battle. In front of Magneto, the high-tech heavy weapons the US military relied on were nothing but ornaments.
Apart from the Air Force, countless Marine Corps speedboats were crisscrossing the waters. These forces had originally been deployed to seal off the sea. The military had also taken Magneto's powers into account, so instead of using large ships, it had sent out a large number of inflatable speedboats.
But facing a bridge dozens of meters above the water, they could only look on helplessly. The US military's forces in the air and on the sea had both been defeated.
The loudspeakers on the island repeated the military's warnings, ordering the Mutants to leave. The words carried across the open water, then were quickly scattered by the sea breeze.
No one stopped. An armed confrontation was becoming unavoidable.
A sudden change unfolded on the screen. At the end of the bridge where it met Alcatraz Island, a thick wall of ice thrust up from the ground, blocking Magneto and the others.
Before that, without anyone noticing, moisture had risen in rolling waves from the sea and gathered in the sky. Before long, dark clouds churned overhead, accompanied by wind and thunder. At the same time, a mass of pale mist rose from behind the ice wall on Alcatraz Island, shooting into the clouds and mingling with them.
With a crash of thunder, hailstones the size of a baby's fist rained down, pelting the crowd on the bridge.
Whirlwinds rose among the crowd and blew away some of the hail. Others raised invisible force fields to shield themselves, but no one could completely withstand nature's overwhelming fury.
Flashes of lightning lit up the tallest building on Alcatraz Island. A slender figure stood there against the wind, her cape billowing and snapping behind her.
Xiang Qian stared at the striking head of short silver hair on the screen and muttered, "Turns out she looks even better with short hair." At the same time, he silently wondered whether her figure had changed at all beneath her cape and battle suit since they'd last met.
Countless metal fragments flew up from the bridge. Some came from dismantled cars, others had been torn from the bridge itself. Like a swarm of locusts, they rushed toward Storm in the distance. Magneto had struck again.
Storm stood perfectly still, focused on controlling the storm overhead. A tall, broad-shouldered figure of silver-gray metal quietly stepped in front of her, shielding her completely with his massive frame. Colossus Piotr had become Storm's human shield.
The metal fragments clanged against Colossus's back like raindrops. Their tremendous impact made Piotr sway, but his legs remained firmly planted.
The attack seemed to have been successfully blocked, but Storm and Colossus soon realized they had let their guard down. The metal fragments that had flown past Colossus without hitting him suddenly swerved in midair, as if deliberately avoiding him, and struck Storm in a dense barrage.
As Ororo cried out in pain, Colossus Piotr rushed forward, scooped her into his arms, and deliberately plunged off the building to evade the rest of the metal storm.
Without her control, the storm quickly lost strength. But at the same time, a beam of light shot up from beneath the bridge, cutting through the railing like a hot knife through butter. It then slowly but steadily began slicing through the bridge itself.
The searing beam pierced the bridge from below and moved sideways. In just a few minutes, it would cut the bridge in two. The crowd on the bridge retreated in panic.
The area beneath the bridge was outside the drone's view, but it was easy to guess who was responsible: Cyclops Scott. He was standing on the rocky shore, which would be submerged when the tide came in. By now, the rising water had already covered his legs.
Just as Xiang Qian had suggested, the X-Men were trying to cut the bridge and stop the Mutants. It was the only way to minimize casualties—for both Mutants and ordinary people.
This time, Magneto didn't act. The one who moved was the Latin American woman, Nightcrawler, who had taken part in the attack on the Professor the night before.
A blur shot toward Scott. Nightcrawler had no weapon in her hands, but she seemed to know Cyclops's greatest weakness. She lunged with all her strength and tackled Scott into the water.
As Scott instinctively stopped firing his optic beam, Nightcrawler reached for his face and yanked off his visor before he could react.
Cyclops's greatest flaw was that he couldn't control his power. Without his visor, he didn't dare open his eyes. He had been knocked around so badly that he couldn't tell which way was which, and without knowing where he was aiming, he had no idea where his optic beam might go if he opened his eyes.
Xiang Qian couldn't see what was happening beneath the bridge, but the beam's disappearance was unmistakable. He clicked his tongue twice, unbothered. Scott was only a romantic rival. If he really died, so be it—it would save him a lot of trouble.
After the X-Men's two attacks had been thwarted, the crowd on the bridge gradually gathered at its entrance. Juggernaut's massive frame pushed through them. He charged forward with a roar and an unstoppable force, smashing into the towering, thick ice wall.
With a deafening crash, the ice wall, several feet thick, burst open as easily as paper. Juggernaut seemed not to feel the slightest resistance as he charged straight toward the US military's defensive line.
"FIRE!"
US soldiers never hesitated when it was time to shoot. Faced with a terrifying figure as huge as a demon god, they didn't even bother following General Ross's order to use rubber bullets first and live ammunition afterward. Every weapon opened fire on Juggernaut at once.
If Scott's optic beam couldn't truly hurt Juggernaut, these small arms stood even less of a chance. Amid a thunderous roar, Juggernaut crashed into the military line. Obstacles and soldiers alike went flying in every direction like weightless stalks of straw as he swept them aside.
Behind Juggernaut, a great mass of Mutants streamed through the breach in the ice wall.
"Magneto certainly hasn't let us down!" Xiang Qian sneered as he began working on his tablet.
At some point, the Spider-Bot that had been lying quietly outside General Ross's command center had crawled onto the building's outer wall. With its powerful jointed legs, it climbed the rough concrete wall and reached an inconspicuous little window.
Inside that window was the source of this whole disturbance, as well as the source of the Mutant Gene Serum—Jimmy, a Mutant boy.
Startled by the deafening noise outside, Jimmy was on tiptoe, peering through the little window. Suddenly, a huge Spider-Bot he had never seen before crawled into view, and he stumbled backward onto the bed in fright.
As Jimmy stared in terror, a transparent crystal no bigger than a fingernail popped out of the Spider-Bot's back and stuck to the glass with a click. Then the Spider-Bot quickly scuttled out of sight, and a dazzling light suddenly shone from the crystal.
When the light faded, a round hole had appeared in the center of the glass, with melted glass oozing around its edges. The reinforced glass, strong enough to withstand shots from large-caliber anti-materiel rifles, now looked like butter left out in the heat.
High-Heat Crystal—one of the products created by analyzing Mandarin's jeweled rings. Its tiny form could store a tremendous amount of heat and release it in a directed beam when needed. Its first field test had already proved successful.
Unfortunately, these crystals, capable of holding immense heat, were produced in very small quantities. Otherwise, Xiang Qian could have rewritten the energy market of the entire world.
Back to the matter at hand: having broken through the reinforced glass, the Spider-Bot quickly crawled inside. It paid no attention to Jimmy, who was trembling with fear. Instead, it climbed along the wall and soon slipped into a gap in the ceiling, attaching itself to an electrical wire.
A moment later, Jimmy heard a strange crackling sound. Then a burst of sparks suddenly erupted from one of the corners of the ceiling.
Jimmy knew that was where the surveillance cameras were installed. He had lived here for years and knew the room was under constant, round-the-clock surveillance.
Confused, Jimmy climbed off the bed and walked toward the corner to get a better look. But before he could take two steps, the floor suddenly vanished beneath his feet, and he plummeted straight down at free-fall speed.
Apart from one brief scream from Jimmy, everything happened in silence.
Jimmy, the boy at the center of an event watched by the entire world, the one who could determine the future of the Mutants, had vanished into thin air.