"Ah!"
Banner doubled over, clutching his head as searing pain tore through his skull. His skin began to turn green, spreading up his neck as a deep, guttural roar forced its way out of his throat.
The Hulk responded instinctively.
After the sudden psychic assault, the monster within Banner prepared to emerge, activating its defensive instincts.
Around him, the others fared no better. A crushing weight pressed down on their minds, their thoughts growing sluggish as consciousness blurred.
Professor X's psychic power had enveloped the entire Earth.
He was not trying to kill anyone.
He was trying to control everyone.
With Cerebro amplifying his abilities, ordinary psychic resistance was meaningless. Even most enhanced humans stood no chance.
Ironically, the Avengers contained very few normal people.
"Get… out of my head!"
Scarlet energy exploded outward from Avengers Tower, sweeping across the globe in a violent wave.
Within the surge of Chaos Magic, the conference room's floor-to-ceiling windows shattered, then instantly dissolved into countless droplets of falling water.
Wanda, wrapped in blazing crimson light, shot out of the Tower and into the open sky.
"How is this possible… ah!"
In that instant, billions of people across Earth seemed to hear the same scream echo through their minds.
Professor X's psychic invasion was forcefully repelled.
Every strand of mental energy he had extended into humanity was violently pushed back.
Wanda hovered outside the Tower, her eyes glowing red as she stared into the heavens. Across an unimaginable distance, she invaded Professor X's mental domain.
It was a pure white world.
Now, it was being drowned in scarlet.
Inside one of the fighter jets that had just entered Earth's atmosphere, Professor X clutched his head and screamed in agony.
Just as Wanda was about to completely overwhelm his mind, another surge of psychic power suddenly surged in.
This new presence carried an aura strong enough to rival Chaos Magic.
Combined with Professor X's remaining strength, it temporarily blocked Wanda's advance.
At the same time, metal across New York City began to collapse.
Reinforced steel bars, massive slabs of concrete, suspension bridges held together by cables, even entire buildings began to tear apart.
Millions of tons of metal and debris surged toward Wanda in a catastrophic wave.
It was as if the world itself had turned against her.
Forced to withdraw some of her mental pressure on Professor X, Wanda extended a finger toward the incoming destruction.
With a gentle tap of her fingertip, ripples of Chaos Magic spread outward.
In an instant, the collapsing earth, steel, and concrete reverted to their original states.
Buildings reassembled.
Bridges restored themselves.
Those who had been crushed beneath the torrent of metal were returned to safety, completely unharmed.
The reality-altering effect, eerily similar to reversing time, stunned the one controlling the metal.
Several seconds later, the enemy launched another attack from a greater distance.
Wanda now faced two powerful opponents at once.
At last, Tony and the others burst out of the Tower behind her.
"Leave the metal controller to me!" Tony shouted.
He shot into the sky, his armor blazing.
Wanda briefly glanced at the red-and-gold figure soaring away.
For a moment, she genuinely could not understand why Iron Man would willingly challenge someone who controlled metal.
Fortunately, Diana and Kara followed him into the air.
Wanda ignored Tony after that.
Moments after he fired a single shot, his armor was violently torn apart by the enemy's magnetic power.
She refocused entirely on the clash within the mental realm.
The two psychic opponents opposing her were no match in terms of raw strength. However, the later arrival possessed a unique psychic quality that could counter her Chaos Magic.
That power actively neutralized her influence, forcing Wanda to invest more effort.
Even so, the gap between them was overwhelming.
Once Wanda truly exerted herself, the psychic structures of both opponents began to collapse rapidly.
On the battlefield below, Tony's first shot had not been meaningless.
A brilliant beam of energy sliced through the sky and cleanly cut through a fighter jet.
As the aircraft exploded, a purple glow flashed.
A teleportation portal opened, transferring several figures from the wreckage down to the ground.
Tony, however, paid the price.
The Mutant controlling metal tore his nanotech armor apart piece by piece.
Tony fell from the sky as his armor disintegrated.
The scattered nanomaterials were seized and pulled toward the Mutant.
It was Magneto.
Suspended in the air, Magneto sneered, convinced that these warriors from another world simply did not understand the terror of magnetism.
Tony, still falling, laughed loudly.
"Jarvis, detonate the nanomaterials."
Once the last fragments were pulled close to Magneto, Jarvis triggered the miniature energy cores embedded within them.
Boom.
A violent explosion lit up the sky, painting it red with fire.
Magneto's scorched body plummeted downward and vanished into another purple teleportation portal.
His fate was unknown, but the Mutants had undoubtedly lost a powerful leader.
The sudden reversal threw the remaining fighter jets into chaos. For a brief moment, no counterattack followed.
Then, two crimson beams of heat vision tore through the flames.
Every remaining fighter jet was obliterated.
Kara had acted.
Purple portals flickered repeatedly amid the explosions.
On the outskirts of New York, dozens of Mutants appeared one after another.
"Jarvis, scan them," Tony ordered as he activated a new Ark Reactor and deployed a fresh suit of armor.
"Match them to the database and share all information with the team."
"Also, activate the armor bio-field."
The bio-field was a defensive layer Tony had developed after repeatedly studying bio-field phenomena through Superman-related magic. It was far less versatile than a true bio-field, but it could isolate many external threats.
Even so, Tony did not feel secure.
"Jarvis, create a research file," he added.
"When I get back, we start developing anti-magnetic armor. Step one is nanocarbon tube materials that are unaffected by magnetism."
"Understood, sir," Jarvis replied.
Tony dove toward the battlefield.
Jarvis had already identified every Mutant present.
Tony's immediate targets were Kitty Pryde, who could phase through matter, and Blink, who could open teleportation portals.
At the same time, Captain America, Hawkeye, Carter, and the others joined the fight.
They clashed with Wolverine and the Mutants who had landed first.
Cyclops exchanged fire with Hawkeye.
Captain America and Wolverine were locked in brutal close combat.
Magneto, who should have been critically injured, astonishingly recovered soon after landing.
He rose once more, metal swirling around him, and charged straight at Tony.
At his side flew Storm, Ororo Munroe.
And behind them all…
Apocalypse.
Tony froze midair as the data scrolled across his faceplate.
"These Mutants include Apocalypse too?" he muttered.