"Who the hell are you?!" Jean yelled, stepping in front of her friends.
"I am Magneto," he replied, his cape billowing in the wind. "A mutant, like you. And I have come with an offer."
"Yeah? What is it? Want some fashion advice? Capes went out of style last century, mate!" Jean shot back.
I raised an impressed eyebrow behind my mask. First night out, and already she was trash-talking like she'd been doing it for years. I was genuinely proud.
"I offer you salvation, Jean Grey," Magneto said softly.
Jean's breath caught. "How do you know my name?"
"I have my ways," he replied. "Join me, and I will show you a world unlike any other — a world where you need not hide what you are. Where you can show the world exactly how extraordinary you are, Jean. Join me."
Jean paused. I could see her thinking.
She was about to speak when MJ suddenly called out, "She's not going anywhere! She's staying right here!"
Magneto looked at MJ briefly. "This does not concern you, human." The way he said the word made it sound like an insult. It was.
"She's our friend," Felicia said firmly, stepping up to flank Jean. "So it is our concern."
"And no second-rate villain in a dodgy cape is taking her anywhere!" Liz added.
"Enough!" Magneto raised one hand. Liz's car lifted off the ground and slammed back down onto the road with a crash that left it a crumpled wreck. Liz flinched back with a squeak.
Magneto's gaze returned to Jean. "Think carefully," he said. "They are your friends now — but what will they do, I wonder, when you surpass them in every way? We mutants are stronger. Smarter. We are the next step in human evolution. Why must you diminish yourself? Why must you make yourself smaller to make others comfortable? You are a god among these people, Jean. Come. Let me show you."
He extended his hand.
Jean looked afraid. She looked at her friends — at Felicia, at Liz, at MJ — and swallowed. "If — if I come with you, will you let them go?"
Magneto nodded. "I swear it on my life and my honour."
Jean stepped forward.
"Don't, Jean," Felicia said through her teeth. "He's lying."
"I — I have to protect you," Jean said quietly. "You're my only friends."
That was my cue.
I had wanted to see what she would do on her own — and she hadn't disappointed. But it was time.
I pulled two liquid nitrogen capsules from my belt and threw them hard at Magneto's position. The magnetic mutant turned, saw the two metal pods arcing toward him, and raised his hands — stopping them dead in mid-air. He crushed them between invisible fingers, releasing a burst of flash-freezing gas.
I swung through the cloud of ice vapour, hidden within it, and came out feet-first — driving both boots directly into his sternum. He went back hard. I landed between him and the girls.
"Spider-Man?!" Jean gasped.
"Hey there, Marvel Girl! Didn't I tell you to stay out of trouble?" I chuckled, then turned to face Magneto as he steadied himself. "Hey, cape guy — the 1980s called. They want their stereotypical supervillain back."
"That's what I said!" Liz yelled.
Magneto straightened, one hand pressing to his sternum. "Spider — this does not involve you."
"Yeah, it really does," I said, lowering my centre of gravity. My fingers moved toward my web grenade cartridges. "You just threatened the lives of civilians, Magneto. That makes it my business."
"Unless you think you can stop me," he said, and raised both hands.
Metal answered. Signs wrenched themselves off walls. Street lamps buckled and flew toward him. A post box tore free from the pavement. Even slabs of concrete laced with rebar came sailing in, drawn by his will. He gathered it all around himself like armour.
"Get them out of here and find cover," I said quietly to Felicia.
Felicia nodded. "On it."
"I can help!" Jean called out.
"Your job is to protect them," I said firmly. "I can't hold him if I'm watching your back. Don't argue, Marvel Girl."
Jean looked like she wanted to. She swallowed it, and nodded.
I turned back to Magneto. "Ready when you are."
"This is your final warning, Spider," Magneto said.
"Bite me," I said, and switched my gauntlets to web grenade mode. I rapid-fired a burst of compact web grenades at him.
"Pathetic," Magneto said, interposing pieces of debris between himself and the grenades. They detonated and webbed the debris together into a sticky wall. He looked at it with mild irritation. "Annoying."
"Here's some web in your eye!" I called out. I had already moved, circling wide and low while he studied the wall. I vaulted his debris barrier and landed right in front of him, firing web grenades point-blank.
"What is this?!" he roared, struggling as the webs hardened around him.
"A sticky situation!" I was already on the wall above him. "Repulsors — medium intensity!" They hummed to life in my palms. Two focused beams caught Magneto square in the chest and hurled him into the side of a building.
I turned to check the road. The girls had slipped into an alleyway, following Felicia's lead. Good.
"You insect!" The roar came from behind me.
I spun. Magneto had torn free — the webbing ripped apart like paper — and was rising into the air, his power surging visibly around him. He was pulling in more metal from every direction, the sheer quantity of it staggering, and he hurled it at me in a continuous barrage.
I ran across the building face as debris came flying in from every angle. My spider-sense screamed, over and over. It took everything I had — every ounce of agility, every last reflex — to stay ahead of it. I bent and twisted in ways I hadn't known I could manage.
An elderly woman threw open her window. "What on earth is going on out there?!"
I leaped over the gap, firing a web net that caught a slab of concrete just before it hit her in the face. "Get inside and lock your windows, ma'am!" I called, swinging away.
I needed open ground. Somewhere with minimal metal — a park. I began heading for the nearest one, swinging fast —
A shard of metal sliced clean through my web line.
I dropped.
I was a storey up and already adjusting to land on my feet — when suddenly both gauntlets were wrenched upward. Magneto had seized them remotely. I went sailing through the air and landed hard in his grip, my arms spread wide, pinned by the metal of my own equipment.
He had torn the webbing off himself entirely. He looked me over with cool, almost clinical interest, holding my arms wide like a man about to hang a scarecrow on a post.
"You are an interesting creature," Magneto said. "Tell me — are you a mutant?"
"Not exactly," I said, mind racing. Keep him talking. Find an angle. "And no — I won't be joining your little club, thanks."
His eyes narrowed. "You dare—? Do you know who you are speaking to?"
"I'm speaking to a Jewish boy who survived the worst that humanity ever produced," I said. "A man who is terrified history will repeat itself against his people." I held his gaze. "And knowing all that — I still think what you're trying to build is exactly what you survived."
Magneto's grip tightened. "You dare compare me to them?! Do you have any idea—?!"
"You're calling mutants the superior race," I said flatly. "Didn't Hitler say exactly that about the Aryans? Didn't he build a special organisation to hunt down those he considered inferior? Will you do the same, Magneto? Special camps? Special registries? Will mutants decide who gets to live?"
He was shaking with fury now. I could feel it.
And then he closed both fists.
"ARGH!" The scream tore out of me before I could stop it. My gauntlets crushed inward, the metal biting into my forearms. I heard bones crack. Pain blinded me for a moment — white, absolute.
He released his hold on the gauntlets and grabbed me physically, hauling me up by the front of my suit.
"I am NOTHING like them!" he roared. "I am saving my people!"
I hung there, gasping. Blood was dripping from my arms where the crushed gauntlets had bitten into the skin. The pain had become a distant, humming numbness. I managed to find my voice.
"You either die a hero," I gasped, "or you live long enough to become the villain."
Magneto went very still.
"You're right that your people need protecting," I said, forcing the words out. "But you hate humans too much to see what you're becoming. You say you're nothing like the Nazis — but you're a little boy who can't find the good in anyone. And that's exactly how it starts."
His expression hardened. "I will make your death painful, Spider. You will feel every second of it as I drive metal through your bones and suffocate you from the inside."
"Funny," I said. "I was about to say the same thing."
Four red arms erupted from my back.
Magneto's eyes went wide.
The top two slammed into the arms holding me. The bottom two drove their tips into his sides. He cried out in pain and stumbled back. I dropped, barely catching myself.
"Unibeam — full power," I growled.
Magneto looked down. The spider symbol on my chest was blazing white. He threw himself backward — too slow.
The unibeam detonated.
It sent him skidding back down the road and he hit the ground hard. He lay still for a moment, then I lost sight of him.
One of my spider arms shot a web line from its tip, lowering me slowly to the ground. I landed, panting hard.
I looked at my arms. Bad. The forearms were bleeding, my gauntlets in pieces. I wrapped them tight with webbing to slow the bleeding and tested my wrist rotation. Forearms broken, not the full arm. Lucky, all things considered. The web cast would accelerate the healing.
I looked up. Magneto was gone. He'd pulled out. Good — because I genuinely wasn't sure I'd had another shot in me if he'd already known what my arms could do.
I tapped my helmet. "Call Kitten."
Felicia picked up immediately. "Are you all right?"
"Banged up, but standing," I told her. "You?"
"We're at Jean's house — eight blocks away. Her parents aren't home." A pause. "How soon can you get here?"
"Ten minutes, maybe," I said, looking at the wreckage of my gauntlets scattered across the road.
"That long? Did something happen?"
"Web shooters are gone," I said. "I'll be there soon, Kitten. I promise."
"I love you, Tiger. Be safe."
I hung up and looked at the ruins of my gauntlets. I needed to collect every piece — and every drop of blood. I didn't want either of those things in the wrong hands.
I gathered what I could, then launched a web line from one of my spider arms and swung away, slow and unsteady. The arms were still unfamiliar for swinging, but I'd manage.
As I moved through the air, I turned the problem over in my mind. How was I supposed to fight that man again? His powers shouldn't even be physically possible — the sheer range and volume of what he could control. It had to be magnetism, but if it was, then he couldn't affect non-ferrous metals. Like titanium. Like my arms.
That was why he hadn't been able to stop them. They were titanium — weakly magnetic, essentially useless to him. My gauntlets had been mostly ferrous alloys — practically a magnet.
I needed to use that. I couldn't rebuild the gauntlets from scratch in time. But I was passing a pawnshop on the corner, and an idea came to me.
I dropped down and went inside.
At Jean's house:
Felicia stepped out of the bathroom and found Jean sitting on the edge of her bed, watching the door.
"Who was that?" Jean asked.
"Peter," Felicia said. "Just calling to check in."
"What did you tell him?" MJ asked from the corner.
"That everything was fine," Felicia said.
"Why?!" Liz shot to her feet. "Everything is not fine! There is a psychotic mutant who can control metal actively targeting us!"
"Which is exactly why Peter should not be anywhere near here," MJ said. "He needs to stay safe."
"Can't we at least ask him to call Johnny Storm or someone?" Liz asked desperately. "I don't want Spidey fighting that thing alone for much longer — we need backup!"
"I agree," Jean said. "I don't want Peter getting hurt, but Spider-Man can't hold Magneto off forever. We need help."
Felicia was backed into a corner. She opened her mouth—
Boom.
The far wall of Jean's bedroom exploded outward, ripped clean off and hurled aside. Magneto floated in through the gap. His cape was in tatters. His armour was cracked in places. Blood dripped steadily from wounds in his hands and chest. He looked like he had been through something severe — and very much like he was furious about it.
"Jean," he said, very quietly. "This is your last chance. Come with me. Or die."
Jean stood up and stepped in front of her friends without hesitation. "I thought you didn't hurt mutants."
"I don't," he said. "But I am running out of patience."
Felicia couldn't help herself. She looked at his wounds with a sharp smile. "Spider did that, didn't he? Superior race, my backside."
"Insolent child!" Magneto tore a chunk of concrete and iron from the wall and flung it at Felicia. Jean's hands shot out. The debris stopped in mid-air, a metre from Felicia's face.
"You will NOT touch them!" Jean roared, and hurled it back.
Magneto batted it aside contemptuously. "If you wish to protect these people, then you will die with them."
He reached into the walls, pulling out iron rods and levelling them at Jean and the girls. Jean raised her hands. He raised his.
Then lightning split the sky.
"You will not harm them!" a voice rang out as the wind surged violently through the broken wall. The clear night turned overcast in seconds, rain beginning to pour.
A woman in a fitted black suit and cape floated down through the storm on powerful gusting winds. Her hair was white as snow, her skin dark and smooth. Her eyes crackled with electricity as the winds buffeted around her without moving her at all.
"Stop this at once, Magneto," she said. "Or we will stop you."
Magneto looked up. "Not now."
The bedroom door came off its hinges and a broad-shouldered man in an orange-and-black suit stepped through. He wore a mask with a V-shaped visor. He snarled — and three metal claws snapped out of each hand.
"Hey, bub," he growled. "Long time no see."
Magneto's eyes darkened. "Logan. How...charming."
"Last time you got away," Wolverine said. "That's not happening tonight."
"Sending a man made of metal to fight the master of magnetism, Charles?" Magneto's gaze moved to the doorway. "Did you fail basic science?"
A bald man in a wheelchair rolled carefully into the room, which was becoming rather crowded.
"You're hurt, Erik," Xavier said, looking at the wounds Peter had left on him. "You're losing too much blood. Stop this. We can find another way, old friend."
"No, Charles, we cannot," Magneto said.
"I'm sorry," Liz burst out, "but what in the bloody hell is happening right now?!"
Xavier turned to the girls with a calm smile. "Ms. Allen — I am deeply sorry that you, Ms. Watson, and Ms. Hardy have been drawn into this. I assure you, we will not allow him to harm you."
"Who are you?" Jean asked. "What are you doing in my house?"
"Jean — my name is Professor Charles Xavier." He inclined his head. "You may not have—"
"You're the leading authority on mutant biology," Felicia said, eyes narrowed. "You wrote The Theory of Mutated Evolution. What are you doing here?"
Xavier blinked, visibly surprised. "I must admit, Ms. Hardy, I am quite impressed you are familiar with that work. But yes — I am also a mutant myself."
The girls all gasped.
"Peter is going to absolutely lose it," MJ whispered.
"Enough!" Magneto's face had gone paler. He was bleeding more freely now. "Stand aside, Charles. Tonight is not the night to test me."
"No, Erik," Xavier said, wheeling himself in front of the girls. "I will not. Storm, Wolverine — if you please."
"My pleasure, Professor," Storm said.
She threw her arms wide and gale-force winds hit Magneto like a wall, blinding him with sheer velocity. She sent both hands forward, calling a bolt of lightning down.
"You are nowhere near strong enough to challenge me!" Magneto roared, raising a concrete block to absorb the lightning. It shattered into powder.
Wolverine came through the hole in the wall at a dead sprint, claws flashing. Magneto raised one hand and Wolverine froze in place, completely immobilised.
"Sending the metal man to fight me, Charles?" He threw Wolverine aside. Storm caught him on the wind.
"I will crush you all!" Magneto rose higher, levelling himself against Storm. "You will bow to me tonight, Charles! I will not stop until—"
"Oh, shut up!" I landed on the roof and drew back my arm. I had exactly one shot at this. I threw my modified EMP gun hard. "Eat this, you magnetic nightmare!"
Magneto whipped around and seized the gun in mid-air. "You — you think a stupid little toy can save you?!" He crushed it in his fist. "You think this—"
He stopped speaking.
A shockwave of de-magnetised air burst outward from the crushed device, rolling over Magneto like a wave.
He blinked. He raised a hand, reaching for metal — and found nothing. His power was gone, screaming into a void it couldn't bridge.
His face went blank. Then he fell.
Twenty feet, straight down, onto Jean's lawn. He hit the ground with a crack. His leg bent at the wrong angle. The bone had snapped.
I dropped down from the roof and landed in the yard as Magneto dragged himself upright, yelling in pain, staring at his broken leg. Almost. I almost pitied him.
I walked toward him. Behind me, the girls and Xavier came carefully out through the broken house. Logan and Storm landed beside them. All eyes were on me.
Rain soaked through my costume. Lightning rumbled in the clouds. My bleeding arms stung every time a cold drop hit them.
"I suspect you're wondering why your powers aren't responding," I said, keeping my voice low but letting the rain carry it. "It's simple enough, really. That device you just destroyed? It was a modified EMP — but instead of creating a magnetic pulse to disable electronics, I reversed the polarity. It electrified the air around your body and demagnetised you. Your powers are reaching for metal and finding nothing. The signal isn't getting through."
I took two bronze jaw-breakers from my utility belt and slipped them onto my hands.
Magneto's eyes went wide. He began to drag himself backward. I grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upright.
"Remember this, Erik," I said quietly. "In all your days to come, in your most private moments, remember the human who beat you. With nothing more than an EMP gun and two bronze knuckle-dusters. The human race is not weak. We won't fall. Fight us, and you will die."
I drew back my arm and hit him.
And again.
Thunder cracked overhead. Each strike was met with an answering boom from the sky.
Magneto's helmet cracked down the middle. I tore it off and threw the pieces aside. His nose broke. Blood flowed freely, mixing with the rain, staining my bronze knuckle-dusters red.
"Spider-Man! Stop!" Xavier's voice cut through the rain. I felt him reach out with his powers — and find nothing but the psychic dampener in my helmet.
"Sorry, Baldy," I said. "Psychic-proof."
Xavier's eyes went wide.
I ignored him and turned back to Magneto. "You would have killed them. Without a thought. Because they were human. Because they were of a different kind." My voice was shaking — with anger, not fear. "Because they were the wrong race."
I was angrier than I had been in a long, long time. I had come close to losing my friends tonight — because of one man with too much power and too much hate. My arms were bleeding through the web cast. I didn't care.
I hit him again.
"That's enough, kid," Wolverine said, stepping toward me.
One of my spider arms extended from my back, its sharpened tip resting an inch from Logan's throat. I didn't even look at him.
"Not yet," I said.
I raised my arm to bring it down on Erik's forehead.
"Peter! Stop!"
Xavier's voice. Using my name.
Everything slowed.
"Peter?" MJ breathed.
"Peter?" Jean repeated.
Liz said nothing. She had gone completely still.
I looked up at Xavier slowly. I looked at Felicia. Her face was pale — stricken — not with fear, but with something else entirely.
"Whose mind did you tear that from?" I asked, very quietly. My eyes moved to Felicia. "Not hers." My voice broke into a snarl. "You absolute hypocrite."
I dropped Magneto and charged.
"Don't," Wolverine said, stepping between us. His claws came out. "Don't do it."
"He raped my girlfriend's mind," I said. "Move."
"You don't want to do this."
"Watch me." I tried to step around him. Logan shoved me back hard.
I met his eyes — and leaped.
He moved fast. He caught my gut with a kick and I landed further back, but I was already coming again. Wolverine roared and charged, claws flashing. I went over him entirely, clearing the jump clean, and landed directly in front of Xavier. A spider arm pressed against his neck.
"What is the difference between you and him?" I said. "He would kill us. You use us. You tore that information from her mind, didn't you? Like it was yours to take."
"I don't do this lightly," Xavier said, his voice steady and calm. "I had no choice, Peter."
"Tell me why."
"Because you were about to kill him!"
"He would have done the same to us!" I roared.
"Taking a life is not justice," Xavier said.
The words landed. I stood there, breathing hard, rain running down my helmet, my arm still against his throat. He was right. I knew he was right.
"Maybe," I said at last. "But what you did to her was unforgivable. You had no right."
"If you wish, I can remove the mem—"
"Don't you dare." My grip tightened on his collar. "You will never touch their minds again. Not one of them. If I ever have reason to believe you have manipulated the people I care about — I don't care what army you build, I will find you. Do you understand me?"
The thunder in the background was the only answer for a long moment.
I released him. I drew in my arm. I walked past Wolverine without looking at him, walked back to Magneto's broken, bleeding body, and stood over him.
"I want you to remember this, Erik," I said. "In all your days to come, in your most private moments — remember the human who beat you. With an EMP gun and two bronze knuckle-dusters, I defeated the master of magnetism. The human race is not weak. We will not fall. Fight us, and you will die.
"You think there is a war coming. And you're right. But it isn't between mutants and humans — it's between those who abuse their power, believing themselves gods, and those who understand what their gifts are actually worth. Like it or not, you are the former. You are everything that is wrong with mutant kind. Because here is what you refuse to accept, Erik: there is no human race and mutant race. There is no difference. There is just us. We are all we have. Accept that. Or the next time we meet, I will not spare you."
I turned away.
The girls were watching me — MJ, Liz, and Jean all still and wide-eyed. Then Felicia moved. She crossed the yard at a run and threw her arms around me.
"I was so worried," she said.
"I'm fine, Kitten." I put away the knuckle-dusters and wrapped my arms around her, carefully. "I told you, didn't I? I won't let anyone hurt you. Not ever."
"P-Peter?" MJ stepped forward. "Is that...is that really you?"
I sighed. I broke the hug gently, sent Xavier one last look, and turned to face the girls. I tapped the side of my helmet and the faceplate slid back, revealing my face — tired, and bruised from where Thor had hit me weeks ago, and carrying a dozen other small aches I had been ignoring for the past hour.
I managed a soft smile. "Hey. I'm glad you're all safe."