Saitama set the plane down like tossing a toy, clapped his hands, and sighed. "Alright. That should do it."
Beast and Charles staggered out and immediately dropped to their knees, retching hard. They'd been airsick thanks to Magneto already, but that last few seconds—hurtling earthward in Saitama's grip—had turned their insides upside down.
Saitama rubbed his temples. "Where is this?"
"International waters… somewhere off the U.K., I think. Charles, we should— urgh— we should… hurl—" Beast tried to talk between heaves.
Charles steadied his breathing; his face was still chalk-white. "We need a way to contact someone for help. Failing that, we must get to Paris first. We have to be in Paris."
"Mm…" Beast nodded, shakily getting to his feet and working feeling back into his limbs. That 'landing' had just about given him a trauma.
Saitama sat on the sand, face not much better. If this dragged on, what about tomorrow? The Paris peace summit was tomorrow. If they failed to stop Mystique there, it was over, wasn't it?
Thinking that far made him flop back on the beach. If it didn't work out—well, the X-Men world wasn't exactly his home anyway.
Charles looked over. "Saitama, given what you just did… is there any way you could take us straight to Paris?"
Saitama glanced at him.
Terror flickered over Beast's face. Let Saitama carry them to Paris? Over the ocean? Sure, Saitama could probably run on water. But the way he'd 'delivered' them just now… Beast's stomach lurched at the memory.
Saitama scratched his chin. "I mean… probably? But I don't think you two can handle the speed."
He drew a breath. "If not, we could… not do it. Or we do a cleanup after. Like Erik said—unify the whole world, then humans would accept mutants, right?"
Both men blanched. "That won't work! Under oppression there will always be—"
"Why oppression? If you guarantee fairness for both sides, what's the problem?" Saitama's thinking was simple: if everyone acted fair, what was there to fear?
Charles exhaled. "Even if a mutant leader treats humans and mutants fairly, there will still be humans who see mutant rule as humiliation—and they'll resist."
Saitama sighed. "Then by the same logic, even if mutants integrate into human society, there will be mutants who see human rule as humiliation, right? So what's the difference who rules whom? Honestly, the first might even be more stable."
He surprised himself with that. Then he frowned. It sounded like sophistry.
Charles had no quick answer. He'd said before that the few must yield to the many. But what if the many wanted to exterminate the few? Back when his supporters outnumbered the Brotherhood, did he truly have the right to speak for all mutants? And if, in the future, most humans agreed to wipe mutants out—should mutants simply accept annihilation?
That was the knife at the heart of it.
Charles clenched his fists. "What do you think we should do? Destroy human society first?"
"I don't know," Saitama said, staring up at the sky. "I just know tomorrow it'll be hard to stop Mystique. You two should think about what comes after."
He was an outsider. He could come and go. If this world fell, it would just be one less place for him to visit.
But for Charles and the others, this was everything. If the Sentinels came, they'd all be target practice.
They didn't know that Erik's situation was far more… dramatic.
Right now, Magneto stood in a strange stone burial chamber. At the door, two skeletons strained under a descending slab, trying—and failing—to hold it up. No one could stop a tomb gate with bare strength.
The carvings looked… Egyptian.
Erik inhaled, thinking to scout the place before moving on. Saitama had torn off his arm—he hadn't seen that coming. Without grit and a desperate jump mid-transfer, he'd have gone down with the plane.
The more he thought about it, the blacker his mood became.
A voice rolled through the chamber.
"Three thousand years… At last, someone comes."
"Who's there?" Erik froze. The words weren't in English—or any language he knew—yet he understood them perfectly. How?
"I am Apocalypse," the voice intoned. "Progenitor of mutants. The beginning— and the end. The mightiest existence." Power thrummed in the syllables. "Now then, foolish descendant… do you desire power?"
"Power?"
"The greatest in this world. Power for which even kings would crawl to kiss my feet. Do you desire it?" the one called Apocalypse crooned on.
"I…" Erik lowered his head.
(End of Chapter)
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