Chapter 16
The Red Hulk was the embodiment of primal fury and unstoppable power. The very earth around him melted, turning into a bubbling lake of lava. The air shimmered with the radiating heat. If he had appeared in the city, buildings would have started to slump like candles, people would burst into flames like torches, and bullets would evaporate before reaching their target.
His colossal foot sank through the crust of solidifying rock again, plunging into the molten mess, robbing him of his footing. Even if Pierce no longer thought like a human, the primitive mind now controlling this body understood: to stand still was to drown in his own inferno. He roared and charged forward, toward the figures visible in the distance, leaving behind a deep, smoking trench of molten earth.
"Everyone, prepare!" Xavier's mental command echoed simultaneously in the minds of all present. He wasn't just coordinating their actions; he had linked their minds into a single network, taking on part of each individual's mental load, accelerating their own perception. The world slowed down for them. They could process information tens of times faster, but their bodies were still bound by physical limits. This gave them precious moments to think, to react.
Xavier, Magneto, Storm, Jean, and Wanda simultaneously took to the air. Pietro shot away like lightning, creating distance. Kurt vanished in a cloud of sulfur, reappearing at a safe distance.
Only Wolverine remained on the ground. His running speed was pathetic compared to the approaching crimson monster. Before he could curse, he was snatched up by Jean's invisible telekinetic force and lifted into the air.
"Professor," Logan snarled into the shared mental chat, "what the hell am I doing here? I can't get close to him; I'll burn alive before I pop my claws. Besides, most of us are useless against a beast like this. Well, except maybe Storm."
"Pfft," Wanda mentally scoffed.
"I have an idea..." Magneto's voice was grim.
"That's a last resort, Erik," Xavier interrupted him.
The Red Hulk reached the spot where the mutants had just been standing. He stopped, looking around furiously. All targets were airborne, unreachable. He couldn't jump—he'd sink even deeper into the swamp he himself had created. So, roaring, he plunged his hands into the lava beneath his feet and began hurling huge clumps of molten rock into the air. They flew with incredible speed, leaving smoky trails behind them.
Jean instantly threw up a wide telekinetic shield in front of the group. The first globs of lava slammed into it, splattering in fiery bursts. The shield held, but the Red Hulk didn't stop, continuing his bombardment. Cracks appeared on the barrier, and under another impact, it shattered. But thanks to their accelerated perception, everyone managed to dodge.
"Storm!" Xavier commanded. "Maximum power! We need to heat him up even more, so he melts his way deeper and gets stuck in the Earth's mantle!"
The clouds above the testing ground instantly blackened, swirling into a vortex. A blinding lightning bolt struck the Red Hulk squarely. His body flashed for an instant, like coal in a furnace. The temperature around him spiked even higher. The ground beneath his feet finally turned into a boiling lake, and roaring, he began to sink deeper, losing his last foothold. Xavier's plan was working—the monster was drowning.
But, to their horror, this didn't stop him. On the contrary, the absorbed energy demanded release. He sharply raised his giant hands. The air caught between his palms was compressed with unimaginable force. Just as compressing gas in a pump heats it, this monstrous pressure instantly superheated the air to thousands of degrees. Then, he clapped.
It was a directed release of stored energy. A wave of plasma began to expand outward from the clap at immense speed. What rushed out wasn't just hot air, but a wave of superheated, ionized gas. It carried three destructive factors simultaneously: colossal kinetic energy of expansion, capable of sweeping away everything in its path; temperatures in the thousands of degrees, instantly melting and vaporizing matter; and a powerful electrical charge, scorching everything like a giant lightning strike. Everything in its path for several city blocks should have been simultaneously swept away, melted, and electrocuted.
The shockwave rolled across the testing ground, leaving scorched, cracked earth in its wake. If not for Xavier accelerating their perception to the limit, giving Kurt precious fractions of a second to react, they all would have turned to ash. In that instant, Nightcrawler teleported and moved everyone behind the Red Hulk.
"Holy shit..." Wanda whispered, looking at what remained of the testing ground.
No one found the words to answer. They all silently stared at the aftermath of the attack. The testing ground, stretching over ten thousand hectares of steppe, covered just a minute ago with dry grass and sparse bushes, was now a smoking, slagged wasteland. The ground for hundreds of meters around had turned into a glassy crust that was slowly cooling, crackling.
The Red Hulk, having released his stored energy, stopped melting the ground beneath him. He roared as he climbed out of the lava pit, but his crimson body still radiated waves of heat that distorted the air around him.
"Looks like this is the last resort, Charles." Xavier closed his eyes for a moment. "Yes. I'm sorry, Logan. Beer's on me."
"What are you sorry for?" Wolverine asked, confused. He didn't hear the answer. Magneto raised his hands, his power reaching for the adamantium skeleton inside Logan's body. Like a puppet, he was ripped from the ground and hurled at incredible speed directly at the Red Hulk.
The crimson giant was nearly invulnerable, his temperature melted metal. But adamantium was different. An absolutely indestructible alloy.
"SON OF A BITCH!" Logan screamed as the monster's heat enveloped him. Flesh and muscle instantly ignited and burned away. His brain boiled and evaporated. Within a second, all that remained of Wolverine was an adamantium skeleton, blackened with soot, flying at the enemy.
Magneto clenched his fists. The claws on the skeleton extended. Controlling it like a remote-controlled toy, he began his attack. The adamantium blades sank into the Red Hulk's superheated flesh with metallic screeches—into his head, chest, eyes. The giant roared in pain and fury, trying to swat away, to grab his tormentor, but the skeleton was too fast, too small, its movements unnaturally precise under Magneto's control.
Blow after blow rained down. The Red Hulk tried to fight back, but it was useless. Mangled, pushed to his limit, he staggered and crashed onto the slagged earth with a thud. But the battle wasn't over. There was no thought in his crimson eyes, only primal instinct, a final impulse of destruction. He raised his monstrous hand and plunged it into his own chest. With a sickening squelch, he tore out his heart—huge, pulsating, black like a chunk of obsidian. Life left the monster's body, but the heart in his hand continued to beat, faster and faster, filling with unbearable heat. It was clear: another explosion was coming, immeasurably more powerful than the last, a final act of self-destruction.
Magneto reacted instantly, sending Logan's adamantium skeleton hurtling again, aiming for the pulsating heart to pierce it, to interrupt the reaction. But before the claws reached their target, a pillar of rainbow light struck directly in front of them.
A figure stepped out of the blinding radiance. A tall, slender man with pale skin and long black hair swept back, dressed in intricately crafted green-and-gold Asgardian armor, over which a fur-trimmed cloak was draped. He held two short, curved daggers. With a faint, almost bored smirk, he flicked the blades, deflecting Wolverine's flying skeleton with a melodic clang. Adamantium, invulnerable to any earthly force, bounced aside.
Paying no further attention to the mutants, the stranger turned to the pulsating heart. "My, what a rarity," he said, genuine interest in his voice. "The heart of an unborn demon. Heimdall didn't steer me wrong."
Xavier and the others slowly approached, keeping their distance. The professor immediately understood they were facing a being of a completely different order, possibly even more dangerous than the Red Hulk. "Excuse me," he began politely, trying not to provoke. "Might I ask who you are? And, if I may, that heart... it needs to be destroyed as soon as possible."
The stranger gave Xavier a condescending look. "I am a God," he answered simply. "And don't worry about the heart. It's coming with me. After all, preserving artifacts capable of destroying worlds is the direct responsibility of any responsible ruler." He made a few passes with his hands in the air. Complex Norse runes flared and swirled around the heart, enveloping it in golden light. The pulsation stopped, and the heart simply vanished.
"A god?" Wanda asked again, tilting her head in confusion. "Like... Jesus?" The stranger looked at her with genuine bewilderment. "I don't quite see what Yeshua ben Yosef has to do with this," he drawled. "But before you stands the delightful, charming, beloved by all the stars, and, dare I say, most humble God of Mischief and Trickery—Loki Odinson."
Silence was his answer. If this was the most humble, what were the other gods like? Loki smiled, satisfied with the effect, then raised his head to the sky. "Heimdall! Open the Bifrost! I have a souvenir." The pillar of rainbow light struck down from the heavens again, enveloped him, and in an instant, he was gone, leaving only a faint shimmer in the air.
In the silence that followed, Jean was the first to speak, turning to Wanda. "Jesus? Seriously? He's the Son of God, not God." Wanda waved a hand dismissively. "What's the difference? But didn't it seem like he was talking like he knew him personally?"
"Judging by his reaction—quite possibly," Xavier answered thoughtfully. "Loki from Norse myths, the God of Mischief. And those runes... definitely Nordic in origin. Curious. This warrants further study."
Storm looked worriedly at Logan's skeleton, upon which the first threads of regenerating tissue were already beginning to appear. "Professor, will Logan be alright? I've never seen him hurt this badly."
"He'll manage, Ororo," Xavier reassured her. "His healing factor is unique. The adamantium bonded to his bones, so the foundation remained intact. He can regenerate even if only ash remained. We have samples of his blood at the base; he can regenerate from those too, though it would take much longer." He turned to the others. "Kurt, take us back to base. Wanda, please, clean this up."
While Kurt teleported the mutants away one by one, Wanda looked out over the devastated testing ground. "Am I the cleaning lady?" she thought irritably. She floated above the scorched earth. A soft scarlet wave of her power spread out in all directions. She couldn't easily change the reality of living beings, but inanimate nature yielded to her effortlessly. The slagged earth was covered in grass again, the crater disappeared, and any dangerous particles left after the battle were transformed into harmless thermal radiation. Within a minute, the testing ground looked as if nothing had ever happened.
---
In Xavier's quiet study, the pieces on the chessboard moved on their own. Black pawns, controlled by Magneto's power, slowly pushed back the white pieces, guided by the professor's telekinesis. The game was nearing its end. Magneto looked thoughtfully at the board, his bishop hovering over a square. "What do we tell Fury? The deal's off. Pierce is dead."
Xavier moved his queen, threatening the opposing king. "He can't blame us for this, Erik. The situation spiraled out of control through no fault of ours. Besides, what difference does it make now? HYDRA's motto may be 'cut off one head, two more shall take its place,' but that doesn't apply to the main heads. With Pierce dead, Zola has two paths: either he acts aggressively, trying to maintain power, or he lies low, restructuring the organization."
"And which option benefits us more?" Magneto asked, moving his king out of check.
"Both," Xavier replied. "If Zola acts openly, he reveals his true face. Mutants and humans will unite against a common enemy, against these pseudo-Nazis. It will strengthen our position. If he goes underground, then without an active threat from HYDRA, it will be much easier for us to promote mutant integration into society. Fury can only interfere if he actively opposes us, and he won't do that. Check."
Magneto blocked with his knight. "What about that serum, the inhaler? Can McCoy recreate it? It could be a useful tool."
Xavier closed his eyes for a moment, telepathically contacting Hank McCoy's lab, then answered Erik. "No. It seems Stark used some unique synthesis process at the sub-molecular or even quantum level," Xavier relayed McCoy's words. "It's a specific, unique structure determined not just by composition, but by the quantum state of its components at the moment of creation. Without knowing the exact process that creates and stabilizes that signature, any attempt to recreate the substance is doomed to fail. We could obtain a chemically identical compound, but it wouldn't have the desired properties because its quantum structure would be different. It seems Stark created a one-time-use device that cannot be copied."
Magneto moved a pawn. "A pity. Perhaps we should deal with Stern then? Eliminate him too. Without Pierce and his puppet in the Senate, HYDRA would be set back decades."
"Tempting," Xavier agreed. "But risky. HYDRA is disorganized right now. If you corner a rat, it might lash out." Magneto thought for a moment and nodded. "What about that God? Are there many more like him?"
"Judging by what he said, and by the myths, he's at least several thousand years old," Xavier answered, moving his rook. "In Norse texts, Loki appears as the God of Mischief. It's curious that he emphasized that himself, but added 'and Trickery,' and hates being called the God of Lies. Etymologically, 'mischief' [or 'kovarstvo' in Russian] comes from a word meaning 'a carefully forged plan'."
"And what does that tell us?"
"It speaks to his psychology," Xavier explained. "Why would a God of Mischief so openly declare himself? Wouldn't it be more logical to pretend to be simple? He was narcissistic. The very use of the word 'mischief' [kovarstvo] instead of 'deception' implies that everyone knows he's up to something, but they fall for his tricks anyway. It's his brand, his reputation, which he's proud of. He revels in the fact that his intentions are transparent, yet people still play into his hands. There were other legends about him... By the way, they mention that they came to Earth via the Rainbow Bridge. We saw that bridge with our own eyes when Loki appeared and disappeared. So, part of the myths are true. Anyway, they call themselves Asgardians. I have many theories, but the main one is that they aren't gods in the theological sense, but rather a highly advanced alien race. Checkmate."
Magneto looked at the board and sighed. "Alright. Then our next step will be Fisk."