"I will not surrender!" Namor shouted, the sound muffled yet fierce in the surrounding waters.
The Talokan king was not a hero, at least not in the traditional sense. Compared to Arthur, the Aquaman of the DC Universe, he was a purer monarch. He would do things that were far from heroic, but everything he did was for his nation.
So, even as the grim reality of his situation weighed on him, knowing that Talokan stood at the brink of extinction, he still refused to give up. Even when he knew his strength was nothing compared to the Atlantean king standing before him, even after his arm had been crushed by the sea beast he summoned himself, he still fought back.
This was the dignity of a true king.
"Get out of my way!"
With a furious roar, Namor summoned a massive whirlpool of water around him. Though the water was formless, under his control it became like countless sharp blades.
Nearby, ordinary Atlanteans dared not approach. Even Queen Mera, still weakened from her wounds inflicted by Talokan warriors, could not get close to the maelstrom.
In this swirling storm of water blades, only Aquaman and Namor could stand and fight.
"Hmm... going all out now?" Aquaman muttered.
He had tried to use his own powers to control and cancel out the raging currents, but he realized Namor was truly fighting for his life. Even for him, if he did not take this seriously, it would be difficult to disperse the razor-sharp streams of water.
He tightened his grip on his trident, and said, "Come on then. If that's how you want it, let's have a real fight."
Out of respect for his opponent as a fellow king, Aquaman was willing to meet him with full strength, though he knew Namor would ultimately fall. For him, respecting another king was the same as respecting himself.
Through his telepathic powers, Aquaman signaled the surrounding Atlantean warriors to clear the way. Then he and Namor charged together into the deeper parts of the ocean.
...
On the other side, 'Batman,' wearing his underwater combat suit, dove into the depths and successfully found the metal sphere Magneto had created to protect himself.
'Conductivity,' 'Batman' thought, narrowing his eyes behind the protective lenses of his suit. 'Any conductive material, no matter how sophisticated, shares that basic vulnerability. And besides, this is my city. You can manipulate metal, Magneto, but I know exactly how it works here.'
Even after dragging the mutant leader into such a chaotic situation by using the battle between Aquaman and Namor, 'Batman' still had no intention of facing him head-on.
A monster who could manipulate the Earth's magnetic field—he would have to be insane to choose direct combat.
If it really came to a head-on fight, even Aquaman might not be able to take Magneto down. It would take someone like Martian Manhunter to be absolutely certain of victory.
That was why 'Batman's' plan was simple. With everything around submerged and Magneto relying on highly conductive metals for protection, the way to kill him was very straightforward.
'Batman' slowly approached the massive metal sphere, attaching a pre-prepared electric bomb onto its surface.
After setting it, he quickly retreated. To make sure the mutant would be killed, the explosion from this bomb would release a high-voltage current that could cover a 20-meter radius of the surrounding water.
As 'Batman' finished setting everything in place, inside the metal sphere, Magneto, still unconscious from the collision between Aquaman and Namor, had no idea that danger was closing in.
...
Far away in Westchester, Charles, who had been using his telepathic powers to monitor the battle, suddenly stiffened.
"Erik has fallen unconscious," he said with an ugly expression on his face.
"How is that possible?!" Storm exclaimed.
Standing beside Charles, both her and Jean, who had already become teachers guiding a new generation of students, were stunned.
Not long ago, Charles had told them that Magneto was about to go all out to destroy Gotham. Both of them had never witnessed him using his full power, but they had heard more than once about how he could manipulate the entire planet's magnetic field.
Someone that powerful, and yet Magneto had fallen unconscious?
It was something neither of them could even imagine.
But compared to Storm, who was genuinely worried about Magneto, Jean was a bit distracted. Her mind was still caught on another matter. Gotham was Reid's hometown. If it were completely destroyed, would he be heartbroken?
That was the thought that made Jean keep paying attention to Gotham's situation.
The virus inside Reid was truly terrifying. In just a few years, it had turned Jean—once Charles' carefully nurtured secret weapon to build a better world for mutants—into a selfish, love-struck girl.
"Because of an accident," Charles murmured.
If he hadn't seen it with Magneto's own eyes just before he lost consciousness, he wouldn't have believed it either. That he could be rendered unconscious by an accident seemed impossible.
But before Magneto blacked out, Charles clearly saw those two powerful men capable of surviving underwater, and the monstrous tidal waves they had unleashed.
"The ocean isn't simple," he explained grimly. "Deep within it, there might be civilizations completely isolated from the world, hidden even deeper than us mutants. Erik, and even Gotham itself, got caught up in a war between two races. That's what led to him falling unconscious."
"Then what should we do now? Why don't we go to Gotham under the excuse of disaster relief? No matter what, we can't let him die there."
Storm couldn't help but speak up. It was the best idea she could think of.
"No, we can't," Charles rejected the suggestion.
If it had been before, he might have agreed. After all, with the Brotherhood's involvement, it would have made sense for the X-Men to step in. Even if the U.S. government noticed, as long as the secret of their fake split remained hidden, they would not have taken action against mutants right now.
But what truly made him refuse was Gotham itself.
Magneto's situation had already proven that even though Gotham had no mystical forces, and neither its heroes nor its criminals were strong enough individually to threaten mutants, it was still not a city where mutants could do whatever they wanted just by relying on their own powers.
Charles was worried about Magneto, but he was even more worried that his X-Men might get dragged into a disaster too.
"I will try to use my telepathy to awaken Erik immediately, so he can rely on his own strength to leave Gotham. That is the only way."
He made his decision. In his mind, this was the best solution. As long as Magneto woke up, with his strength, getting out of Gotham should not be a problem. He couldn't risk losing the X-Men too.
They had already lost half their forces represented by the Brotherhood. He could not afford to lose the rest.
With that thought, Charles put on the Cerebro helmet. His powerful but invisible psychic ability reached out, stretching across the distance until it hovered over Gotham City.
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