ULTIMATE X-MEN
#1 First Blood
JFK Airport, NYC, USA
Millions upon millions of travelers passed through JFK Airport every year, it was always filled with hurrying passengers and disgruntled workers. At gate B12 one of those very disgruntled workers smiled a large toothy grin that never reached her eyes and welcomed the arriving passengers to New York. The new arrivals struggled against the streaming traffic of homo sapiens, carry-on bags in tow.
One passenger stepped through the door, and at first glance there would seem to be nothing special about him, he was in his forties and wore a felt business hat. A large overcoat made of wool covered anything below his neck until it reached the black leather boots on his feet. However when the greeting stewardess looked him in the eye to make her repetitive greeting her voice caught in her throat. The man's eyes were a frigid ice blue and they glared down at her with such malevolence that it made her shudder. His steely eyes soon dismissed her as if she were nothing more than a roach and proceeded into the flow of human traffic. Miraculously he wasn't touched as he slowly and methodically made his way toward the center of the terminal.
Behind him trailed four more figures, a young man and three young women. They were dressed also in long heavy clothes that the warm spring weather didn't call for. As the man walked calmly on his way a sound slowly overcame the din of human noise. It was the sound of static. The televisions in the terminal one by one suddenly began to broadcast nothing more than snow on their flat screens. Slowly the busy people began to take notice and a hush slowly fell over them all.
Again, one by one, the televisions flickered and the picture on their screens changed. Each one held the picture of the middle-aged man as he stood at the center of the terminal. He removed his hat to reveal more of the thick white hair that covered his head. He dramatically threw off his overcoat to reveal a coating of almost mercurial metal that covered his body from the neck down. The shimmering metal that covered him moved about as if it had a life of its own. He held out his hand to the young man behind him and received a metal helmet. He placed it carefully on his head, as if it were his crown. Spreading his hands he floated up into the air, slowly spinning so that every human there could glance upon his regal, angry face.
Below him the other four abandoned their over clothes to reveal garish suits of their own, each one a different color than the last. The young man below him also had thick white hair, as if inherited. His own blue suit had a silver lightning bolt splashed prominently across his chest. The eldest, a young woman with black hair, wore a suit of black and gold. Next to her were her sisters' in arms, one dressed completely in red and the other in green.
"Hear me humanity!" the man finally spoke to his rapt audience. His voice, though slightly touched by age, was firm and resonated throughout the terminal. "Homo sapiens, your final hour has come! It is now the hour of homo superior. So says Magneto! Let this be a warning to you; do not stand in our way."
That was when all hell broke loose.
The metal bolts and pipes that held the terminal's roof groaned and then crashed down on the crowd below. The humans screamed and trampled over each other to escape the falling metal debris. Miraculously the four followers below Magneto remained unharmed as the airport literally fell down around their ears. Through the shattering of glass and the sound of steel grinding against steel fiery explosions belched in from outside, the chaos had spread to the tarmac.
Planes that had been on their regularly scheduled routes suddenly dove, no matter what the captains tried they plummeted to their blazing deaths below. Engine fuel only added to the piles of fires as all of the planes within twenty miles dropped to their doom. Some crashed through houses turning them into nothing more than flames and dust. Some impacted on the earth below, scattering debris around the crater where the wreckage eventually came to rest. In Manhattan people screamed as more and more planes came crashing down around them. One such airliner flew into a skyscraper; the resulting explosion caused the building to collapse on itself.
Memories of September Eleventh flashed through the city dwellers' minds as ash and concrete rained down on them thicker than any fog or blizzard. A survivor stumbled blindly on a large chunk of concrete that had fallen in front of him from a nearby building. He wiped his eyes and looked up, what he saw caused his panicked breath to halt. Thousands upon thousands of cars floated upside down nearly thirty feet over the asphalt roads that crisscrossed through the city.
All at once the vehicles dropped as if thrown down by some unseen force. Metal and glass seemed to fill the Manhattan air. People ran in panic, unsure of where to head, nowhere seemed safe, not their buildings or their cars. Almost as many people died in the ensuing panic as the hundreds of thousands that had passed before them in the attack. The city flew into utter hysteria and the crowded streets became a blood bath as everyone scattered away from the destruction only to find more and more of it all around them.
Back at JFK Airport, the man only known as Magneto still floated in the air where the terminal had once stood. Below him were his four followers, completely untouched even the dust that floated thick all about them somehow avoided their clothes and faces.
"Well done, sister," the young white haired man below said to the female in red. "I don't think I even felt the wind of the collapse." About them lay unspeakable carnage. Large pieces of metal and wood lay jaggedly about, some of them were coated in blood. Loose bodies hung from what remained of the rafters, now on the floor. Below them a thick dark spreading crimson stain spoke of all of the blood spilled.
"Come, my children," Magneto said warmly to the four below him as if he had not just slaughtered thousands of innocent lives. "I think our work here is finished."
Washington D.C., USA – 5 Minutes Later
"What do we have on this . . . Magneto?" President Obama asked, chewing furiously on a piece of nicotine gum.
"He's a mutant," Henry Peter Gyrich, the Secretary of Defense, was quick to point out. "Our men are sure."
"As sure as they were about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?" Nick Fury countered. He was a grizzled man who was much older than he looked. Not only was he a retired five-star general, but he also headed the United Nations greatest peace-keeping initiative, SHIELD. President Obama looked at the men that stood before him, beside Secretary Gyrich was Reverend Graydon Creed, one of the spokesmen for the Church of Humanity.
"Over fifty-thousand dead and their murderer has completely disappeared," Obama summed up their situation. "Do we not have any contingencies for these types of situations? We've been aware of the mutant problem since World War Two; I can't believe we don't have anything to throw at this terrorist."
"Actually," Gyrich proclaimed triumphantly, dropping a manila folder on the president's desk. "I do."
"Not Project Sentinel," Fury suddenly interrupted adamantly. Images of the platinum-haired Magneto flashed on the television screens that were placed haphazardly about the oval office.
"Do you have some other option?" Obama asked. "This is even worse than the previous terrorist attacks and I have to have something to offer to the public. The entire world is looking at us now."
"Exactly," Fury drew in closer. "Which is why Project Sentinel is the worst thing we could do. I have another option and not only can we enact it immediately, but it is much cheaper than Gyrich's proposal. I don't believe I need to remind you of the recession and the backlash of such an expensive operation."
"What, exactly, do you have in mind?"
"We fight fire with fire," Fury seemed to grow excited as he begun to explain his plan. "If this guy is a mutant then let's send mutants after him! If they die then they die heroes and there is no great loss to the nation. If they succeed then that would further mutant rights, just as you have always wanted."
"What?" Gyrich interrupted rudely. "You can't trust them! Who's to say that the mutants you send after Magneto won't just join him?"
"Which is why I have agents already in place and they have been examined by SHIELD's best telepaths," Fury pressed. "They want nothing more than peace between mutants and humankind."
The president took Gyrich's manila folder and opened it up slowly. Gyrich shot a look of triumph over at Fury, but the General was too busy focusing on the president to notice. Gyrich quickly composed himself for victory.
"Thirty Trillion dollars?" Obama asked incredulously. "In this tough economy after how much I have already asked of the people, I can't ask them that much more. How much are you asking for, Fury?"
"Nothing," Fury pronounced, now it was his turn to look victorious. "The agents have already been trained and tested, all that we would require SHIELD can provide. We only ask your approval."
"You've got it," Obama nodded at Fury. "But if this turns on me I'm holding you responsible and we are using Gyrich's plan."
"Understood, sir," Fury saluted and quickly took his leave, behind him Gyrich stared daggers into his back.
Westchester, NY, USA
"Oh, come on, mate, I was open," John complained at his best friend, 'Nic. "I'm Australian and even I know you've gotta pass the ball in basketball to win."
"Oh shut up," Nic blocked a shot from Cain. "You only lived in Australia until you were seven."
"Seven and a half," John corrected him. Their two opponents, Mort and Cain both glared down at them as the odd pair of friends took control of the ball.
Just outside the chain-link fence that surrounded the court sat Professor Charles Xavier and his close friend and associate, Telford Porter. Both of the men were about the same age, but they couldn't be more different. Charles, who had devoted his life to study, was completely bald and sat in a wheelchair. Telford was a man that had done very little with his life, at least until he met Charles. Charles had changed his life completely.
"Come on, John," Mort taunted the fiery-tempered blonde mutant. "Afraid you can't take my skills?"
"As long as you don't use your powers then you've got nothing on me, frog boy," John grinned as he slowly advanced on his two opponents, Nic trying to sneak pass the enormous Cain.
"Frog boy!" Mort leaped at him, his wide mouth opening revealing a thick mass of a green tongue. Like a dart it shot out like a frog's and pulled the ball from John's hands. Using even more of his mutant abilities Mort jumped clear over John, and then leaped into the air again to make a basket. Suddenly a wall of flame erupted in front of him.
Mort dropped the ball and covered his face. Nic was waiting with open hands below. Just as quickly as the wall of fire had appeared it disappeared and Mort grabbed onto the hoop, the ball now half way across the court in Nic's hands.
"Hey!" Mort shouted angrily, letting go of the hoop and landing in a crouched position on the concrete court. "No fair! You know there is no use of powers in this game."
"You used them first," John shouted back as he hustled to catch up with his teammate. "Don't blame me."
"Oh yeah?" Cain asked. He lifted up his massively muscled frame and slammed a foot and his fists into the concrete.
A wave of debris and asphalt came flying at 'Nic who cleared it easily with one hand extended forward. Using his own special abilities he caused seismic vibrations to course through the air, deflecting the projectiles. But he still had the massive form of Cain to contend with. The man was built like a brick house and about the same size as one. It was hard to imagine the crippled intellectual Xavier and the thick muscled Cain were relatives.
"Cain!" Charles Xavier called out to his half-brother. "There's no need to destroy the court to try and win a game."
Cain looked sheepishly around at the shattered asphalt that was once the basketball court. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at his co-players. John and Nic glared at him, but Mort just leapt onto his shoulder.
"Don't worry about it, buddy," Mort laughed. "Daddy left you two a lot of money."
Cain opened his mouth to respond but instead Xavier's cell phone rang loudly, interrupting him. The Professor was quick to answer it.
"Charles Xavier here," Slowly Xavier's mouth went slack and his shoulders slumped. Even the rowdy friends in the court stood silently at the edge of the chain link fence, listening for anything that could make Professor Charles Xavier, one of the world's greatest minds, look so utterly horrified.
"What is it, Charles?" Telford asked impatiently, as he was the closest. The professor only held up a hand to forestall any more questions for the moment.
"I completely understand, General," Xavier said seriously. "I was hoping it wouldn't be so soon, but I think they are ready."
The five assembled friends of Xavier glanced at each other. Why would the peace-loving professor be talking to a General? Everyone waited with baited breath until Charles finally snapped shut his phone.
"The time has come, my X-Men," Xavier said seriously. "It's time to suit up, we have a mission."
Washington D.C., USA
"Why did that damn liberal appoint you to the office of secretary of defense if he wasn't going to let you defend us?" Reverend Creed asked bluntly.
"Our problem is, my young friend," Secretary Gyrich took off his glasses and stared Graydon Creed in the eye. "That Obama, much like the rest of those bleeding hearts out there, don't see mutants as a problem."
"How could they not?" Creed's voice rose. Gyrich held up a hand for Creed to calm down. "People who can start fires with their eyes, children that spew acid strong enough to erode steel, how can they not see them as a threat?"
"They seem to see them as the next step in human evolution," Gyrich explained to the spiritual leader.
"So, what do we do?" Creed asked vehemently. "We're almost out of funds and we are hemorrhaging supporters."
"We make them see them as a problem," Gyrich sat back, replacing his glasses in front of his eyes. "We force them into action on the issue."
"How do we do that?"
"Fury's disgusting little mutant strike force is the key," Gyrich stated. "Discredit them, and you discredit Fury and his "ideals". Obama will have no choice but to set Project: Sentinel into motion."
"And how are we going to do that?"
"Don't worry about that," Gyrich reassured. "I already have that taken care of. It's only a matter of time."