Author's Note – I do not own any of the characters, Marvel and DC do.

.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Exsuperantia

.

Chrome frowned as the ariel battlefield swelled into view. The centerpiece of it was the Helicarrier Exsuperantia which was hurling out volleys of projectiles from its guns. The shells slashed into the swarms of Sentinels, Heroes and military jets, but the flying heroes managed to dodge the worst of it, occasionally managing to block the shots aimed at the jets as well.

"Shit." Frenzy hissed. "We're heading into that?"

"For Lord Magneto." Chrome confirmed, pulling back on the yoke slightly. "We need to force the ship down. Send Myst here, I will need her powers. Everyone else is to prepare to jump with the flyers providing airlift. I will open the path."

Frenzy nodded as she rose from the co-pilot's seat and Chrome concentrated on piloting until Amelia Vaught entered the cockpit.

"I'm here." She stated. "What's the plan?"

.

Magneto stood on the bow of the Exsuperantia, his placid gaze taking in the battle. Occasionally, he would reach out and boost the flight of a Sentinel, or move one out of the way of an attack that would have destroyed it, but otherwise he stood unmoving. A flicker of light caught his attention and he smirked slightly as Archangel swooped down to punch through the skin of one of the attacking jets, pulling out shattered equipment and sending it tumbling.

.

"We're ready." Frenzy shouted over the howling of air past the open rear ramp.

"Then as soon as we dive, you may proceed." Chrome called back.

"There isn't any other way?" Myst sighed. "I mean, this is the only plane we have…"

"I would gladly trade a thousand planes for a chance to have Lord Magneto return to us." Chrome stated. "Tell everyone to jump!"

Myst waved then pulled herself fully into the cockpit, grabbing Chrome's shoulders as their target started to swell in front of them.

"Won't Magneto simply push us away?"

"No!" Chrome yelled back as he sent the plane into a slow spin. "Tekmage duplicated Colossus' device that blocked Lord Magneto's powers, it's mounted in the cargo hold!"

Myst nodded, then inhaled sharply as Chrome sent the plane between a pair of sentinels.

"On my mark… Mark!"

Myst turned into vapour, pulling Chrome with her as the airflow sucked them out of the plane.

.

Magneto blinked as an odd, yet familiar sensation registered.

No.

It was the lack of a sensation.

Magneto spun round and looked up just in time to see the jet, travelling almost at the speed of sound, spear straight into the center of the Exsuperantia, slashing deep into the hull and then exploding. Gouts of flame lanced out through the cavernous hole as well as the hatches near it and Magneto thrust his hands out, grabbing the burning wreckage that had been the Exsuperantia and guiding it towards the river in an attempt to put out the flames and save as many of his Master's troops as he could.

Magneto was so busy concentrating on levitating the shattered ship that he failed to notice as a sudden billow of mist crashed down onto the deck behind him, transforming into two people, one of whom promptly dropped to her knees, gasping for air.

"Lord Magneto!" Chrome shouted as he hurled himself towards his former (and hopefully future) master, only to come to a total halt mid-air as Magneto slowly turned to face him even as the bisected ship settled into the river-bank.

"Ah, Chrome." Magneto said calmly. "Welcome back. I assume that you are here to serve Lord Apocalypse? Or are you here to oppose him?"

"Lord Magneto!" Chrome called urgently. "You are being controlled! Fight it!"

Magneto tilted his head slightly in thought, then sighed. "You could have been one of Lord Apocalypse's greatest soldiers… what?"

The ship rolled and Magneto rose into the air, flying round until he spotted a giant figure levering the end of the ship up. Reaching out, he shattered the hull of the ship into spears and sent it at the figure, only for it to shrink and split into three men who flew off in different directions. An instant later, an armoured figure arced through the air towards him, a figure that he couldn't detect with his power. Magneto slipped to one side as the figure arced past, then the world flashed purple and he found himself on the ground.

"Wha…"

The leaping figure landed on him and Magneto reflexively lashed out with his power, only for it to be met and countered by an identical one. Magneto looked round for the source, then he spotted it, a green-haired teenaged girl hovering over his attacker's shoulder, an attacker that he now recognised as Juggernaut in armour that he had never seen before, armour that looked semi-crystalline.

"Father… he's strong."

Juggernaut growled and grabbed Magneto's helmet, crinkling it and pulling it off, then Magneto felt a pair of hands flickering around his head.

"Dammit! They're not coming loose!" Quicksilver cursed as he blurred to beyond arm's length. "Juggernaut, those things on him go underneath his armour!"

"Then let us- glrrrk!"

Juggernaut clawed at the Sentinel's hand that was wrapped around his throat, then the Sentinel took off with a roar of jets, carrying the monarch of Genosha with it. With his main attacker gone, Magneto rose into the air, his gaze fixed on his youngest daughter.

"You are no match for me."

"I. Don't. Care!" Polaris ground out as she struggled to restrain Magneto's power. "You. Hurt. My. Father!"

"No, Polaris. I am your father." Magneto intoned. "Join with me and we shall bring about a new age, the Age of Apocalypse!"

"Never!" Polaris grunted as Magneto used his superior experience and power to drive her backwards, then she was slammed into the ground by Archangel.

"A pity, but if she will not serve, then I have no use for her." Magneto mourned as he turned away. "Kill her."

Archangel placed a hand against the inside of his wing and a thick-stemmed metallic feather formed, its edges glistening with visible sharpness. Raising it, Archangel swung down, only for the feather to be blocked by a pair of katanas held by a man clad in red and black.

"Hey readers, you didn't really think I'd let a pretty girl like that get killed, didja?" Deadpool laughed as he forced the winged warrior away from the prone teen. "Whooh! Ths is gonna be fun!"

Archangel swung at Deadpool with a second blade-feather, then he spun and blocked the counter-strike with his wing. The katana bounced off and Deadpool somersaulted backwards to avoid the wing-slash that would have disemboweled him.

"I'll deal with him, readers, then I'll have me a Chimichanga feast! You go and see how the others are doing with Magneto!"

.

Magneto stared at the maniacal motor-mouthed mercenary, then turned to face his daughter, ignoring the cry of "Alliteration! Whoo!" from Deadpool.

The object of his attention was being helped to her feet by Chrome.

"Surrender now and enter the service of Apocalypse, or you will die." Magneto stated.

"We need to get his armour off so we can pull off those control things." Polaris stated and Chrome nodded.

"Frenzy! Now!"

Magneto spun round, just in time to be sent staggering by Sabertooth slamming into him, having been hurled by Frenzy. Pumping his power into his armour, Magneto used it as a powered exoskeleton to swat the large mutant away, only to be sent staggering backwards by a roundhouse punch from Frenzy that dented his chestplate, damaging the latches that held it in place. An instant later, a magnetic force that wasn't his ripped it away and sent it slicing into the neck of a nearby Sentinel, dropping it in its tracks. A moment later, the re-combined Kleinstock Brothers were there, punching out another nearby Sentinel, then grabbing onto Magneto's cape as Chrome used his power to turn the metal of Magneto's outfit into salt, allowing it to be ripped apart almost instantly.

"Get off me!" Magneto roared, pulsing his power so that everyone was sent flying, propelled by the interaction of their own bio-electrical fields and his magnetic field. "You cannot stand against me! Compared to Lord Apocalypse, you ar-rrrrRRRRRRGH!"

Pietro blurred into visibility, panting heavily but with a triumphant grin on his face as he dropped the primary control node of the control circuitry that had been controlling Magneto onto the floor.

"Done it!" He panted. "That's the damned stuff removed."

"Polaris!"

Pietro dived to one side as Juggernaut stormed past, then he staggered over to Chrome.

"I'm knackered." He admitted. "Let's just grab pops and get out of here."

"A good plan." Chrome admitted. "There is one problem, however."

Pietro looked round at the mass of Sentinels and ceramic golems that were surrounding them and closing in.

"Ah, yeah. This could be a problem."

"At least we will die at the side of Lord Magneto." Chrome shrugged and Pietro stared at him in horrified shock.

"I don't wanna die!"

"And you shall not!" A familiar voice shouted as lightning struck the Sentinels and golems, blasting them away from the new arrivals. "By the beard of my father! Juggernaut, what ails thy daughter?"

"She exhausted herself trying to hold Magneto." Juggernaut rumbled as he rose to his feet, cradling Polaris gently in his arms.

"Then I shall help you guard her, while Sif and the Warriors Four deal with these soul-less abominations." Thor declared.

"Is this guy for real?" Pietro asked in bemused disbelief, then he ducked as a Sentinel imploded, a humanoid figure stepping out of the burning wreckage.

"Hah!" Lor-Zod shouted as he rested his staff on his shoulder. "Now that was an entrance!"

"It was… adequate." Thor chuckled and Nightwing pouted.

"Adequate? Hey, some of us don't have mystical hammers that fire off lightning to help us, you know."

Pietro shook his head in confusion. "They are heroes?"

"Swap!"

Nightwing threw his staff at Thor, catching the hammer in return. Both warriors used their new weapons to smash through the attacking enemies before they threw the weapons back across.

"You see?" Thor laughed. "You can have a mystical hammer that fires off lightning to help you!"

"They're crazy."

"Nay, just enjoying themselves." Came a voice from behind them, causing Pietro to jump in shock.

"Aaaah!"

Pietro grabbed at his chest as a sword-carrying warrior lady lunged past, slicing into the leg of one of the ceramic golems.

"What is it with people sneaking up on me today?"

.

Deadpool blocked the slashes from Archangel's wings, then he tripped over a piece of wreckage.

"Oh, this looks bad!" He whispered as Archangel stabbed at him with both feather-swords and wings simultaneously, only for the attacks to be sent off-course as an overweight armour-wearing man body-slammed Archangel away.

"Art thou injured?"

"Art?" Deadpool asked as he flipped to his feet. "Who's Art? I'm Deadpool!"

"Ah. The insane one." The man nodded and Deadpool pouted.

"Why do people say that? Even the readers think I'm crazy."

"We can discuss this later. My name is Volstagg." The man grinned, then he lunged past Deadpool, his axe clanging as it blocked the blades aimed at Deadpool's back.

"Oh, it is so on!" Deadpool growled, spinning his katanas as he stalked forwards. "That little blue-bird of happiness is gonna get plucked!"

Leaping forwards, Deadpool slashed down in a move that sliced open Archangel's bodysuit, leaving a bleading gash in his chest, a gash that in the space of a few seconds, stopped bleeding and began to heal.

"What?" Deadpool gasped. "Wolverine, Sabertooth, me and now him? What it is with all the ridiculously sexy people having healing abilities?"

"We need to remove the circuitry that controls him!" Volstagg shouted. "Xavier will help him to recover once we have freed him from the shackles Apocalypse hath used upon him!"

"Awww, I can't kill him, then?" Deadpool pouted, then he grinned. "Time to dance!"

Diving forwards, Deadpool rolled so that he rose facing Archangel, then grabbed the winged man and headbutted him before kneeing him in the gut. As Archangel bent over in pain, Deadpool yanked off his hood, then sliced down to reveal his back and the metallic disc set into the small of his back, a disc that was the source of the lines of circuitry.

"And… pop goes the weasel!" Deadpool sung off-key as he slid his fingers under the disc and yanked it away, causing Archangel to collapse onto the ground, out cold. "Was that meant to happen? Hey, readers. You gotta admit, I'm cool!"

"Who are you talking to?"

.

.

.

.

.

Author's afternote – This is the first of three chapters that cover the same timeframe, so "Hey, what? You mean I'm not coming back in the next two? Come on, readers! Tell him that he needs someone as awesome as me! Tell him to write about me! Deadpool! Tell him to give me a chapter with my beloved Chimichangas… mmmmmmm, Chimichangas… Hey, what's with the ropes and the gag… no! No! NO! mmmph! Mmmmph!"
…yeah. Deadpool just hijacked the afternote.
No, I don't know how it happened either.