Chapter 21
"Magneto," said Yaoyorozu.
He was exactly as the X-Men described – an older man wearing red and purple armor, with a purple cape and a red helmet. He was floating high in the air, apparently solely by using magnetism with the surrounding metal in the area. Creati doubted she could defeat such a powerful foe, but she could at least buy time for the others to arrive.
"What are you doing here, Magneto?" she asked.
"Ah, so the X-Men informed you of me, child," he said, as he lowered himself closer to the ground. "I would think my purpose for being here is obvious." With a wave of his hand, the scanner was pulled off of its tripod and into his hand. "I am here to personally retrieve the data on the anomaly occurring here; and since you X-Men went to the trouble of bringing your own equipment and doing the work for us, I'll gladly just take it."
Creati tensed up, knowing she had to retrieve that data at all costs.
"Don't bother, girl; you've no chance of besting me."
"Not alone she doesn't, but that's why we're here!" declared Shoto, as he arrived at the top of the favela on an ice slide.
Bakugo flew in shortly after him, with Cyclops and Wolverine bringing up the rear. Magneto seemed intrigued by the new faces, but turned his attention to the X-Men's field commander for the time being.
"Return the scanner and turn yourself in!" demanded Cyclops.
Magneto scoffed. "I refuse," he stated, plainly. With a lifting of his hand, Wolverine suddenly found himself suspended in the air. "My apologies, Logan, but you really are such a nuisance at the end of the day." Magneto flicked his hand, and Logan was sent flying all the say down to the bottom of the favela.
Cyclops opened his visor and fired an optical beam at Magneto, only for the Brotherhood leader to block it with a slab of metal. Anticipating that the frontal assault would be either blocked or evaded, Dynamight and Shoto took to the skies to flank him from both sides; their offensive did not last long, however, as they quickly found themselves electrified by the dangling remains of Creati's electric trap.
"What the hell!?" exclaimed Bakugo.
"You didn't think I disabled such a useful device, did you?" asked Magneto, as he hovered a pair of Yaoyorozu's IFF fobs in a circle above his hand.
"He must've taken them when we jumped," groaned Shoto.
"Give the young man a prize. Though minute, I sensed the small amount of metal in them the moment you boys arrived."
"Like that's enough to stop us!" said Dynamight, as sparks flew off of his hands and a large explosion completely obliterated the twisted electricity trap.
On the other side, Shoto unleashed a wave of ice and then rapidly heated it with his fire, setting it off like a bomb and destroying the trap holding him as well.
As Dynamight and Shoto fought Magneto in the skies, with ground support from Cyclops, Creati was left down on the ground to face Mystique. The two women sized each other up, Momo's face serious, while Mystique's was confident – practically cocky.
"Think you can take me, little girl?" asked the blue-skinned mutant.
"We'll see," replied Yaoyorozu, getting into a fighting stance with her bo staff.
Mystique made the first move, leaping forward like a tiger; Creati wasn't intimidated – she calmly took a step back and held out her staff. Mystique made to grab the end of the staff, but Creati thrusted it forward, aiming for the head; Mystique deftly twirled out of the way in midair, then caught the staff and swung around it. Creati shifted her weight and the staff, narrowly dodging the kick aimed at her face; she let go with one of her hands and grabbed the mutant, before using the leverage from the staff to throw her to the ground. Mystique simply rebounded off the concrete floor like a gymnast, and made sure to aim a pair of kicks at Creati as she cartwheeled away, but her feet were painfully swatted away by the staff.
"Not bad, but let's see how you do without your toy," said Mystique, licking her lips sadistically. "Magneto!"
Up above, the Brotherhood leader effortlessly used manipulated metal to fend off attacks from the three other men he was fighting, only briefly turning his attention away to address his right-hand-woman. "I'm afraid I'm rather preoccupied, my dear; and I couldn't help if I wasn't."
Creati stepped forward and delivered a barrage of jabbing and swinging attacks with her staff, most of which were easily evaded by her opponent; but she managed to graze her a few times, putting her off-balance. "Hate to break it to you," said the Creation Hero, as she kept up the pressure, "but this staff is made of carbon fiber!"
Creati landed a hard hit, but Mystique blocked it with her forearms. The blue mutant hit the ground, only to do a backwards somersault and immediately get back to her feet.
"Well, aren't you clever," said Mystique, stepping forward, slowly.
Her skin pulsed, then fragmented and folded in on itself. Her muscles expanded, skin turned a fair complexion, height doubled, clothing – a white t-shirt and blue jeans – manifested, and her long red hair turned into a blonde buzz-cut.
"But how will you deal with someone twice your size!?" said the large man that now stood before Creati.
Momo backed up a little, and that was all the hesitation the shapeshifted man needed. Mystique closed the gap with a single long step, leaving Creati barely able to duck the huge haymaker that followed. Creati braced herself, but where a large man once stood, now a small child was dropping out of the air; the child grabbed hold of the bo staff and swung forward on it, kicking Yaoyorozu in the chin; before she knew it, the child's limbs grew longer, and suddenly a mirror image of herself was standing before her, bo staff in hand.
The other Creati's eyes flashed yellow, as she licked her lips sadistically; but the real Creati was undeterred – she quickly spawned a pair of carbon fiber tonfas from her arms. The false Creati pounced like a jaguar, bringing the bo staff down just as the tonfas finished fabricating; Yaoyorozu crossed her arms overhead and blocked the vertical strike, then flung her arms outward to throw her opponent back. The fake Yaoyorozu recovered quickly, a devious smirk on her face – she anticipated a rush to capitalize on the opening, but it never came; instead, six barbs connected to wires embedded themselves in her exposed abdomen, and electricity surged through her body, bringing her to her knees. Only then did the real Creati, with three spent tasers falling from her own abdomen, rush forward and land three quick hits – one to the right shoulder, one to the left side of the clavicle, and one straight into the right temple. As the fake Momo fell back, she twisted her hips to try and land a few kicks, but the real Momo had already retreated to a safe distance.
Mistique looked up and shifted again, into Wolverine this time. She leaped forward into the barbaric mutant's trademark attack – one Yaoyorozu remembered from training; a thick, carbon fiber rod spawned from her chest, but it was too slow to intercept the acrobatic shapeshifter, and Creati found herself knocked to the ground again, and once more by a cartwheeling Quicksilver as she tried to get up. She was losing ground quickly.
Thankfully, a silver blur zipped by, and Mystique was suddenly thrown back; a few more streaks of silvery-blue cut back and forth across Creati's field of vision, and Mystique was out cold, back to her normal blue-skinned form.
"You alright?" asked Quicksilver, stopping to check on his new friend.
Creati took a moment to dust herself off and check herself over. "Yes. Thank you for the help."
"Sorry I was late; I was checking on Wolverine."
"And?"
"He's fine, of course; but he's sitting this one out…metal skeleton and all."
Back up above, Shoto and Dynamight continued to assault Magneto from all direction, while Cyclops took potshots at him from the ground. The older mutant repelled their attacks effortlessly, all the while keeping the scanner out of their reach. The entire favela was filled with sheet metal rooftops, rebar, pipes, guns, fences, and an assortment of other metal objects, giving Magneto a near infinite supply of material with which to do as he saw fit. He easily swung the objects around in the air, knocking Dynamight away with a barrage of wrenches, and tangling Shoto in a fence; when Cyclops wasn't shooting at the man, he was dancing around a storm of pipes and crowbars. While none of this kept the heroes down for long, they had no better luck on offense, as Magneto compressed and fused metal objects together, and shaped the resulting masses into shields to defend himself.
"THAT'S IT!" screamed Bakugo, losing his patience.
His arms tensed, and their veins bulged; he held both hand out in front of him; an orange glow filled with sparks appeared in his palms. In the next instant, and titanic explosion big enough to blow the roof off a stadium shot forward. Magneto's shield moved to defend him, but even he couldn't stop himself from getting pushed back against the wall of a nearby building.
A massive ice formation soon followed, surrounding the shields and holding them in place. Shoto rode up the side of the building and shot flames, not at Magneto, but at the scanner. Layers of sheet metal moved to protect it.
"Bakugo!"
"Yeah! If we can't have it, we won't let you have it either!"
Bakugo let off another massive explosion. When the smoke cleared, Magneto floated in place, having tucked himself into a ball to shield his face, letting his armor take the brunt of the impact. Behind him, the scanned remained unscathed, having been protected by a mesh of countless rods of rebar that Magneto had pulled through the brick.
"Impressive," he said.
With a wave of his hands, he shattered Shoto's ice and smacked the two boys away with his shields, before summoning a storm of metal to surround him. A new player entered the arena at that moment – Quicksilver running along the swarm of debris to chase Magneto into the air; he grabbed onto the older mutant and looked him the eyes.
"Father, stop this. Please."
"I've told you before, Pietro – what I do is for the good of all mutants. There is no stopping this."
A group of crowbars snaked themselves beneath Pietro's arms and pried him off of his father, before flinging him back down to earth.
"I believe I've made the futility of your resistance clear," said Magneto. "I'll be taking my leave now."
Everyone down on the ground, now including Creati, stayed in fighting stances, ready for what was coming next.
"Oh, don't worry; I won't kill you today. I'd rather not kill fellow mutants that I would rather have join my cause," he said, nodding to all of them. "Continue to interfere, however, and that grace may yet be rescinded."
With a beckoning gesture, Blob and Havok came flying out from the favela, pulled along by the metal parts of their suits; Mystique, meanwhile, was surrounded by nearby metals and carried along just behind them. Before long, the storm of metal faded into the distance.
"Shit! I can't believe how OP that asshole was!" screamed Bakugo.
"His powers are on a whole other level," said Todoroki, "not just in scale, but also in the fine level of control he has over them."
"We never stood a chance," added Yaoyorozu.
"Don't beat yourselves up over it," said Scott. "Magneto is one of the most powerful mutants in the world, and he's had decades to train himself to use that power."
"So, how the hell are we gonna beat him!?"
"With more manpower, for starters," replied Scott. "We'll track him down to where he's going and beat him together, like we always do."
"Not today we won't," said Logan, finally rejoining them. "For now, let's call in a return to the school and regroup."