On Alcatraz Island, the Mutants launched an all-out assault on the main building.
Because the doors, windows, and passageways limited their options, the U.S. military's return fire was concentrated. The Mutants charging at the front fell in rows like wheat cut by a scythe.
Magneto held his hands out and sensed the metal building materials inside. Before long, the whole building began to shake. The concrete walls cracked apart, and the rebar inside twisted as it strained to burst through. Almost every metal object inside was flying through the air, turned into a weapon against the people in the building.
More than thirty years ago, Magneto had been able to lift a stadium that could hold tens of thousands of people and pull the White House's nuclear shelter up from dozens of meters underground with one hand. Tearing down a building that was nearly a century old was just as easy for him now.
From the moment the Battle of Alcatraz began, Magneto had repeatedly shown them what it meant to be a one-man army.
Just as the Mutants eagerly awaited the sight of the building collapsing into rubble, its shaking gradually came to a stop. A layer of white ice rapidly spread from the inside out, covering the entire building and encasing it in a thick protective shell.
Colossus, who had been fighting the Juggernaut outside, broke away from his opponent and leaped into the building. The next moment, ice blocked every possible entrance, including the doors and windows, turning the whole building into a giant block of ice.
Iceman Bobby, too, began to fully awaken his extraordinary talents in this battle.
The hastily assembled steel battering ram had little effect, while the huge fireball Pyro John controlled only burned up a layer of mist. Magneto shouted, "Juggernaut, open a path for us—it's all up to you!"
Though he looked imposing, Magneto was already burning with impatience.
Magneto knew full well that the U.S. military had to follow complicated procedures before it could use force on a large scale within the country. That was the main reason reinforcements had been so slow to arrive and the Mutants had managed to storm Alcatraz Island so easily.
But with all the commotion on Alcatraz Island—and with him having even torn down the Golden Gate Bridge—the U.S. government couldn't keep dragging its feet.
The forceful intervention of his old rival, the X-Men, had cost him far too much time. There were a good number of U.S. military bases around San Francisco, and reinforcements could arrive at any moment. Even though Magneto himself feared nothing, he was worried that the chaos might prevent him from achieving his ultimate goal: killing Jimmy.
Cain Marko, the Juggernaut, roared as he accelerated toward the building and leaped with all his might.
"Rumble..."
Just like the ice wall at the bridgehead, the building's frozen shell proved no more durable when the Juggernaut struck it. A massive hole appeared in the outer wall on the second floor, and the Juggernaut successfully barreled inside.
At that same moment, in the presidential suite of the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco's Financial District, Xiang Qian looked at the footage Spider-Bot had captured of the empty laboratory. He put on a tactical mask, then strolled through a portal flickering with red sparks and stepped out in front of Jimmy's room on Alcatraz Island.
Xiang Qian's target was the island's pharmaceutical preparation laboratory, where all the research data on the genetic drugs developed by Worthington Industries was stored.
Unfortunately, to avoid suspicion, Xiang Qian had never entered the laboratory before. Now he couldn't open a portal directly into it, so he had to settle for arriving outside Jimmy's room. The laboratory was right next door, after all—just a step away.
As the Spear Bureau's field agents often said, if an operation went from beginning to end without a single mishap, that was the biggest mishap of all. The first half of Xiang Qian's plan had gone smoothly, and he had successfully taken Jimmy away. But in the second half, even that simple step next door brought an unexpected complication.
Xiang Qian had just closed the portal and had yet to take a step when the floor at the far end of the corridor suddenly shattered. A massive figure leaped up from the floor below, landing right in front of him.
Xiang Qian knew the Juggernaut, but the Juggernaut didn't know him.
Xiang Qian wore a neat, unmarked tactical suit and a tactical mask. A holster with a pistol hung from the outside of his right thigh. If not for the strange monocle over his left eye, he could easily have been mistaken for a soldier.
"Who are you? Where's the boy?" The Juggernaut's deep voice echoed through the corridor like a muffled thunderclap.
Xiang Qian studied the mountain of a man with interest. As Professor X's brother in the legal sense, and with strength and vitality so powerful they were almost beyond belief, Cain Marko was an especially unusual figure even among superpowered people.
Xiang Qian had taken an interest in him, too.
Besides his nearly unending hatred for Professor X, what intrigued Xiang Qian most was the source of the Juggernaut's powers. In the classified files Xiang Qian had read, the Juggernaut was labeled a Mutant, but there was an added note beneath the label: "Uncertain."
In other words, this man, who was deeply involved in the affairs of radical Mutants and served as Magneto's foremost vanguard, might not be a Mutant at all.
In different circumstances, Xiang Qian would have done everything he could to haul this mountain of flesh back to his laboratory and examine his X-Gene. But he had more important things to do now, so he'd have to let his gun do the talking.
Xiang Qian lowered his right hand and gripped the P226 holstered on his outer thigh.
"I asked you a question. Answer me!" The Juggernaut flew into a rage when he got no response and charged toward Xiang Qian. For him, a corridor twenty or thirty meters long took only six or seven strides to cross.
Xiang Qian drew his gun in a flash, but before he could raise it, a petite figure seemed to rise like a ghost through the floor in front of him.
Seeing the charging Juggernaut, the figure blurted, "Oh, no!" She spun around, crashed into Xiang Qian's arms, and wrapped both arms tightly around his waist.
"Don't move. I can protect you." Her soft voice was unmistakably a girl's.
A feeling like weightlessness swept over him. Xiang Qian felt his body, clothes, and belongings all turn intangible in an instant.
His vast store of memories immediately identified the girl who had volunteered to protect him without a second thought.
Shadowcat, Kitty.
Xiang Qian remembered that when he first visited Xavier's School, she had still been a little girl. Nearly ten years had passed, and she had grown up and joined the fighting as an X-Man.
Still, wasn't she a bit undernourished? How could she be so tiny? In more ways than one, too.
All these thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant. As he mulled them over, Xiang Qian gently put out a hand and moved the girl behind him, then pushed her a short distance away. In that brief moment, the Juggernaut had already covered two-thirds of the corridor.
As soon as he pushed Shadowcat away, Xiang Qian felt his body's weight return. He raised his gun and fired.
"Bang—boom!"
With the aid of his shooting-assist lens, the shot struck the Juggernaut's knee with pinpoint accuracy. His tough skin, which ordinary firearms couldn't penetrate, failed to stop the P226's bullet. When it pierced the bone, it detonated with a violent blast, blowing the Juggernaut's right leg into two pieces.
"Gah—!"
Amid a thunderous scream, the Juggernaut crashed to the floor, his massive body sliding along it under the force of its momentum.
Xiang Qian fired the P226 repeatedly. The gunshots and explosions rang out in a fast, steady rhythm as blood and bursts of flame erupted across the Juggernaut's limbs and torso.
By the time the Juggernaut slid to Xiang Qian's feet and finally stopped, his body was riddled with horrifying wounds, and all four limbs were broken. Chunks of flesh flew everywhere, turning the corridor into a blood-soaked slaughterhouse.
The unstoppable tank had stalled.
The Juggernaut wasn't dead. A sound that might have been a scream or a roar came from his mouth, still full of force. Xiang Qian calmly studied his wounds. In just a moment, new human tissue was already writhing across them.
His terrifying vitality and regenerative powers left Xiang Qian amazed. But at the rate his wounds were healing, he wouldn't be able to stand up and fight again today.
Xiang Qian put away his gun and turned to Shadowcat with a smile. "Miss, thank you for trying to help me just now. But I'm more used to protecting women than being protected by them."
"Who... who are you?" Shadowcat asked nervously. The sight of flames and flying flesh had badly shaken the girl, and she still hadn't recovered.
Back when Xiang Qian often visited the school, Kitty had been just eight or nine years old. Later, she grew up, while Xiang Qian returned to his home country and visited the school much less often. So she had hardly ever met him face-to-face.
Thanks to his powerful memory, Xiang Qian could recognize her, but Kitty couldn't recognize him. Especially since he was wearing a tactical mask.
Xiang Qian had no intention of saying more to the girl. He pointed toward Jimmy's room, which was already empty, and said, "I know you came looking for that boy. His room's right there. As for who I am, that doesn't matter. Just know that I'm not your enemy. I have another mission here, too."
With that, Xiang Qian strode lightly toward the laboratory at the other end, stepping over the bloody mess strewn across the floor. As Shadowcat watched curiously, he pushed the door open and went inside.