Chapter 25 : The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.... (Patreon)

Disclaimer - I don’t own Marvel/Disney IP. I am just a humble keyboard warrior. Also, the Chaos Gacha was made by Bronz here. I am just dipping my toe in the water, so to speak.

Antarctica

–Mike–

He waited on the ground, Alcina right next to him, as some of the strongest mutants alive walked down the ramp, chief among them being the Mind reader in chief, along with Magneto, then Storm. He could sense Logan staying in the ship, which made sense since his powerset, while awesome and useful most times, was not really at the level where it could be useful in such a situation.

Huh. To think that he would have surpassed legendary characters like the ones in front of him in less than a year of him being here. He wondered just how much he would grow in the years to come? After all, this was the Marvel universe, there was always chaos sitting right around the corner.

“Mr.Mike. Ms.Alcina,” Xavier greeted them as he rolled to a stop a dozen feet away from him. A bold move, especially since he had the mother of all monsters behind him.

“Xavier. Lehnsherr. Munroe. Summers.” Greeting everyone, he noted the slight tightening around Magneto’s eyes when he said his surname. He supposed that was not common knowledge then.

Then, there was silence in the clearing for a couple of minutes, with both parties just staring at each other, not willing to be the first to break. He had plenty of time on his side, or at least that’s what he wanted to convey. In reality, he was still kind of lost on what to do with the monster on his side.

There were only so many places that could safely hold onto a monster of Ghidorah’s size without setting off global alarms, and one such place did come to mind, and it was close, too, but even so, he wanted to see what Xavier had come here with. After all, there was no way he could have done this successfully without having Fury’s approval, who in turn, must have had the approval of the majority of the world’s governments, or POTUS at the very least. 

“Mr.Mike,” it was eventually Xavier who broke the silence, the entire group’s gaze regularly staring past him to Ghidorah, who was still asleep or pretending to be anyway. The monster’s presence was not something that could be ignored by even the likes of the strongest of Mutants who had seen some stuff in their lifetimes, “I must ask, what is that creature?”

“That?” he made a show of turning around, thinking before replying, “That is my familiar, just like Alcina here is.”

Ororo took in a sharp breath at his reply before her eyes quite literally turned white. She looked like she had barely restrained herself from taking a step forward as she replied with gritted teeth, “You mean she is a slave?!”

Xavier and Magneto exchanged calm looks at that, while Scott looked thoroughly alarmed at the prospect.

“No,” he replied, “They are my teammates, magical teammates. Anyway, that is not why you are here, are you? I assume you have some sort of offer on hand. Go on, tell me what it is.”

Xavier looked concerned for a moment before he replied, “We are not here with any offer, Mr.Mike. We are here to ascertain the origins of that monster and its relationship with you. We believe you did the right thing by stopping the monster in its tracks. I believe you don’t know of this, but the energy attack from the monster was a potential Extinction Level Event.”

Xavier then paused, gauged his reaction, then continued, “The world would be a lot safer without–”

“Yes, I understand that. What I want to know is what they are offering me. After all, I can only see the three jets that came with you, and they are not firing any missiles here. So, once again, I ask, what is the offer? Fury must have sent you here with a purpose, right?”

Xavier once again looked uncertain as to how to proceed. Did the man truly believe he could come here and convince him with what? Diplomacy? Appealing to his good side?

What was this? A comic book?

Before he could say anything about this disappointing interaction, his senses tingled, one of the Quinjets’ outer shells began moving. He looked at Xavier and Co to see if they knew of this, but their reaction did not tell him anything, not to mention Xavier was a cold bastard who could keep everything to himself if he felt like it would help his goal.

Hopefully, it was not a nuke otherwise they were fucked, but just in case, he—

A red dot appeared on his chest. His eyes widening, he immediately began moving out of the way, all his abilities acting in tandem to make sure he moved out of the way of whatever weapon had locked onto him. Wind surged around him, throwing him out of harm’s way, and his legs had already kicked the ground, breaking it apart in his quest to get away.

He’d succeeded, too. In less than a second, he was out of the laser’s range, but he did not account for the fact that the laser might be away from him, and the projectile itself was large enough to account for the distance.

He was mid air and already in the process of running towards Ghidorah, to wake him up, when he saw the flash of blue from the corner of his vision. It was too fast, and before he knew it, he felt the air exit his lungs as the projectile, whatever it was, hit him center mass. 

He was thrown back, only stabilising himself using the wind to push him down into the ground, then using his hands to carve grooves into the hard ice, as he looked at the crumpled missile in front of him. He looked up as the Quinjet that had fired this Railgun at him de cloak itself and fell down, as if it had lost its power.

His mind was in super speed, which was perhaps the only reason he saw the flash of disappointment on Magneto’s face as the Railgun failed to do any damage, aside from knocking him away when he was unprepared. Well, if that was their strategy, then he could knock them back as well.

His hand lashed out, ignoring the desperate “Wait!” From Xavier as the wind around the Quinjets turned violent, pulling the rotors away from each other, destabilising their flights. They even collided with each other, damaging what stealth systems they had in place, revealing the older generation Quinjets in the air.

He felt the winds reduce in intensity as his neck snapped to Storm, who was floating in the air, eyes white, trying to take over his control of the wind around him. She had also changed the weather above them, turning it more extreme, perhaps unaware that the darkening sky and the impending storm would only serve to strengthen him.

For surviving a first generation StarkTech Railgun, Bronze Ticket X1

He ignored the system notification as a beam of a very familiar kinetic energy was aimed at him. He raised his hand and blocked the beam of energy, which understandably drew surprise from Scott, as he had probably expected him to use his own ability against him, but he wanted to keep that ability, and if Scott got the subconscious thought of cancelling out his powers, he might lose access to the very useful long range ability. 

With Storm meddling in, he wasn't able to overwhelm the Quinjets. In the meantime, Xavier was trying to get into his mind, but to no avail. He was able to easily ignore his probes, without any distraction whatsoever. The Legendary trait was proving its worth in real time.

The sound of metal being sheared off reached his ears before a very sharp, pointy metallic projectile was hurled towards him. Alcina surged forward at that time, her claws sharpening as she cut that piece of metal in half before it reached him. 

Magneot, not to be outdone, manipulated the broken off pieces of metal individually before sending them to him once more with renewed vigor. Alcina tried, she really did, but Magneto had decades of experience with his power so he was able to outmanoeuvre her, making sure that at least some pointy bits hit him.

Alas, it was all useless as the same body that could survive a railgun unscathed could easily survive a few pointy metal bits. It was not like it was Adamantium or Vibrani—Ohh.

He made the connection and acted on it within the same second. The two hands that he had absorbed back into his body when he sensed them coming, surged forth once more, manifesting themselves with a wet tearing sound. Those two hands then glowed red, proving his gambit true, and were then aimed at Magneto, releasing a bright beam of red, forcing Magneto to defend himself.

The difference between him and Scott when it came to speed was immense, as Magneto had no choice but to rip off more metal from the Quinjet to create a makeshift shield around him. The laser impacted him at the same time as his body was covered in that shield, launching him out of the sky and into the distance.

Magneto would be fine. This was not the first time he was blasted out of the sky. He was one tough son of a bitch. He just needed the Master of Magnetism out of the picture because on their own, both Magneto and Wolverine were not really much of a threat to him or his familiars. But if Magneto was able to accelerate Logan to use as a bullet, it would be far more effective than a mere railgun.

Yes, he was part Dragon now, and they were known for their high vitality and healing, but even Dragons died, and he was not about to find out if Logan bisecting his body was survivable or not. He thanked the Pendragon trait for figuring that out as quickly as he did because, before this, he would not have been able to act on it this quickly.

It was the same reason he had been conscious to move any attack away from the X-Jet. As long as the jet was intact, it would not make a lot of sense to leave the Jet without a pilot ready to take off the second all the members were inside. Once that Jet was destroyed, then it would be the same as pushing the X-Men into a corner, and well, even normal humans were capable of surprising things if backed into a corner, let alone a bunch of almost Omega Level mutants.

His hand had begun getting warm but not hot, as Scott continued to push the output to his limits. It was not going to work, he could tell. Xavier was still trying to get past his mind shields, Ororo was still trying to get hold of the winds he commanded, Scott was fruitlessly pushing and roaring, Magneto was out of the fight for now, and Logan was sitting in the Pilot’s chair, probably feeling quite frustrated and impotent.

It then came to him. He was holding off against some of the heaviest-hitting mutants on the planet and not losing, not at all. Hell, if he wanted, he could injure them quite severely. That was a sobering realisation for him.

He sensed Magneto coming back from his impromptu trip, but he was no longer willing to stay here and fight them. This was useless since they could not kill him, and he would not kill them. 

They were at a stalemate, especially since they did not have anything resembling an offer here. He needed to present himself as the reasonable party here, which was somewhat easy because he was attacked first and only responded in self defense. He even left everyone alive, well, maybe the pilot in the downed Quinjet was dead, but that was not his fault.

Who told SHIELD to install experimental railgun tech on Quinjets, that consumed all the power from the Jet in one fell swoop, rendering the Quinjet nothing more than a hulking scrap of metal?

As he felt Scott’s lasers flicker and reduce in intensity, he shouted, “Enough!” before using all four of his arms to dig a big groove in the land between him and the Mutant team, and at the same time, pushed his powers once last time, just enough to violently wrestle control back from Storm and destabilise her flight enough for her to drop from thirty feet high up in the air.

She stabilised before she splattered on the ground, but it was a close thing, and she knew it, judging by her pale face. Magneto had come back by the time, but seeing that everyone had gone silent and he was not attacking anyone, just landed behind Xavier.

Cutting off the flow of energy to all of his four arms, he noticed the odd looks the mutants were giving his arms, but ignored them in favour of getting his point across. He needed an offer, he wanted to negotiate, and he couldn’t do that if the guys were hell bent on killing him. So, in order to get his point across, he spoke with clear intent.

“Look, you can’t kill me. If you do, Ghidorah here, yes that is its name, will go berserk. I think you have an idea as to what will happen if I die. Your plan of trying to kill me right now was just plain stupid and put the entire planet at risk. Secondly, you can’t nuke me. Ghidorah here is an energy being. He can absorb any kind of energy.”

Their eyes widened, and Charles’ face in particular sported an alarmed expression at the prospect.

“Also I chose this place because it is so remote. If I wanted to, I could have just as easily gone to Asia or just back to Australia and inflicted immense damage. In summary, I don’t want constant attacks here. I want a deal.”

He then exhaled before his two hands on the same side snapped up, sending in a beam of bright red, bigger than what he used for Magneto, straight at Ghidorah. He could feel them tensing up at that, but Ghidorah barely glanced at him before closing its eyes, uncaring of the attack since it was, to him, barely more than a mosquito bite. 

In fact, the yellow glow around Ghidorah that seemingly absorbed the red laser only further proved his point. Cutting off the flow, he looked at the gathered mutants meaningfully, “I expect someone qualified for negotiations here soon enough.”

Charles nodded, Magneto looked thoughtful as they went back into the X-Jet. It flew up, and left at full speed, ruffling the area around him, with the Quinjets following suit a moment later. The ruined Jet was left there, but the pilot at least was taken by the Quinjet, escorted up by Magneto using his powers, though the pilot was certainly dead by the way his body was limp.

With the area empty, he sighed and went over what he expected from then now. His instincts told him that it would be polite to fall back right now, especially since he had the entire world by its metaphorical balls. Knowing what he did about Fury, the World Security Council, and most Politicians on the planet, he could safely say that they will send in someone for negotiation.

In fact, this tactic actually pushed the people in power away from taking some drastic steps as it gave him a human angle.

Monsters could only be killed and destroyed.

Humans could be reasoned with, negotiated with, and profited off. Especially someone like him, he wagered they already had something in their mind when it came to him and where they could use him. Hell, if he agreed to become any country’s attack dog, they would instantly become a world power, even if he did not actually attack anyone and just stayed in their country as a deterrent.

A thought that was bound to cross Fury’s mind, and right now, he must be scrambling to make sure that SHIELD was the one who got hold of him and not any other nation as that would just destroy any semblance of status quo that the world has.

Meanwhile, he had to deal with the other issue that was arguably much bigger than having to deal with the rest of the world combined.

Stopping right next to Ghidorah, he looked towards a corner, the same place where he had carved a big hole during Scott’s powers, “Enjoyed the show?”

There was nothing there, but his senses told him another story. A moment later, he was proven right as the air rippled around that air, revealing the form of the Ancient One, the Sorcerer Supreme, and the one with the highest chance of killing him, on the planet anyway.

___xx___

Meanwhile, back in SHIELD base

–Nick Fury–

“Who was that?!” He roared, as the analyst in front of him scrambled to get him answers. The screen in front of him glitched before showing him the full profile of the pilot who used the experimental weapon he was explicitly told not to use unless by his direct orders.

Colin Cain.

“I want teams at every single place he has been in the last month. I want to know how many holes he had in his underwear! Do you understand me? The man might just have caused the end of the world there.”

Colin should consider himself fortunate that he died in the crash, otherwise he would have only dreamt of death under his hands.

Everyone had seen the feed. Everyone! POTUS, WSC, NATO, everyone! The last sentences uttered by this Mike was certain to put everyone in a frenzy and-

He sighed, seeing POTUS’ name on the priority call. Stomping towards the makeshift conference room, he answered, “Sir. Yes sir. I have my best men on– Yes, sir. I will make sure secure transport is arranged. As for candidate selection– You have someone in mind? Sure, sir. I will get it done.”

POTUS hung up on him, and he slumped. Great, he lost the chance to get his people in the negotiation process. The one time POTUS pulled the full weight of the US military to get things done in his way, it had to be this one.

Yet another reason to find out just what possessed Colin to do what he did.

___xx__

Washington DC

–?--

“Rumlow, make sure Fury does not find anything about Colin. Burn down all contacts. Find out who has been selected for the negotiation team. We need one of our own there. Kill the candidates one by one until our people are on it, if you have to.”

“Yes, sir!”

“HAIL HYDRA!”

“HAIL HYDRA!”

__xx__

Canada

–?--

He sipped on his wine before throwing the glass at the wall, watching the shards violently spill above the current test subjects, cutting their body with shards of glass lodged in some as well.

Ignoring them, he stalked back to his office. He had not expected Mike to be capable of leashing a monster like that. His physical durability had also increased by leaps and bounds. A qualitative improvement over the last attack.

At this rate, all his painstakingly curated plans will fall apart, all because of one person who had more power than sense and decided to flaunt it openly to the world.

Atleast he had managed to make sure that nothing could be traced back to him. Those HYDRA idiots were quite useful for stuff like this, but that still did not solve his main issue. He needed to get rid of all muties, but he couldn't do that with that Mike hanging over his head. He needed something to get rid of possibly the most powerful mutant he had ever encountered.

Damned Muties!

Word Count - 3366