Max, now dubbed 'Flux' by Magneto, became part of a two-man team—which was also named by Magneto. He had decided to call the duo 'Polarity' and said it quite often, causing Max to constantly curse in his mind.
'All great men have... interesting naming senses, don't they? At least he didn't call us "The Twin Poles" or "Superposition"...'
The two of them floated above the mountain that hid the tomb inside. Magneto had on a winterized version of his classic suit, while Max was wearing yet another sweat suit, this one solid white in color, accompanied by matching white high-tops. Not exactly snow gear... but with his level of resistance to the elements, Max didn't really feel uncomfortable in this bitter cold at all!
"We are in position, Flux," Erik said, his cape snapping in the cold wind as they hovered over the site. He looked at Max with a rare, satisfied glint. "The world will remember this day as the birth of Polarity—the two ends of the spectrum, meeting to silence an incorrect future... But Max, aren't you cold?"
Inside his head, Max was celebrating his new moniker.
'Flux. Damn, I love it. It's a real name. A comic book name.'
He briefly thought back to the long afternoons at the comic store, scanning back issues of 'Incredible Hulk'.
'I mean, yeah, technically there's that Benny Tibbetts guy back in my world's comics—the Gamma-irradiated soldier. But screw it. Different universe, different rules. I'm the Flux of record now. Besides, I actually have the style to pull it off. But that Polarity team name—ugh.'
"Right. Polarity. Very catchy... Magneto." Max said aloud, keeping his tone casual while his inner fanboy took a victory lap. "Nah, the cold never bothered me anyways... (Max couldn't help but drop the Disney line in this situation.) but don't worry—I brought my suit along... By the way, remember, the 'sleeping beauty' downstairs is going to hit his snooze button as soon as he senses us, so don't get within grabbing range. He will try sucking your power out of you. Let's go."
While they were still in the air, Max reached into his backpack. He pulled out two large-caliber Desert Eagles—custom jobs he had picked out from the Brotherhood's secret arsenal when preparing for this, with long, brutal square barrels that looked like they could stop a tank. He followed the hand cannons up by pulling out two marble-sized metal orbs, all four items slowly orbiting around Max as the duo touched down in front of the entrance, still buried in snow.
Erik had his own armaments as well—more or less what Max had expected. Twelve gleaming, basketball-sized metal orbs followed around obediently behind Magneto, ready to be turned into whatever weapon or shield he needed them to be.
Max and Magneto stood before the oversized doors of the tomb, the Tibetan wind whipping Max's hair while the two marble-sized metal orbs at his waist hummed with latent kinetic energy.
Beside him, Magneto stood like a pillar of living iron, his chosen weapons orbiting him like a solar system. His cape snapped violently in the gale, his gaze fixed on the ancient stone. Max caught the older mutant's eye and offered a sharp smirk. "Watch the new guy at work, Magneto. I've been practicing this for a while."
He stepped forward past Magneto into the drifts before the door, his movements becoming rhythmic and precisely choreographed.
He snapped his feet together, the sharp click of his heels cutting through the howl of the storm, before lunging his left leg out into a deep, braced stance. With a wide, dramatic arc, he swept his right arm across his chest, his splayed fingers cutting through the freezing air.
"Henshin!"
At the shout, Max flooded the metal orbs with a precise spike of electromagnetic energy. They shattered instantly—not into fragments, but into a shimmering, silver-grey cloud of 'dumb' nanobots. There was no AI in the swarm, no digital brain guiding the process—just a series of preset physical triggers baked into their very structure via the Jump document option, just for Max.
Like a set of falling dominoes, the moment his power hit them, the nanobots reacted with a mindless, mechanical chain reaction.
A violent, violet-ish white electromagnetic aura erupted from Max's core, swirling in a tight vortex that sent the surrounding snow screaming away in a perfect circle. Jagged electrical bolts arced from his body into the air around him. He was using his powers to emulate a 'Super Saiyan 2' transformation effect—a crackling, high-energy fanfare that lit the dark stone door of the tomb like a localized lightning storm.
The nanobots responded to his magnetic pulse with great speed, flowing along the lines of force he projected. Starting from his high tops, the armor began to knit itself upward over his clothes, the mindless machines locking into each other like a high-speed jigsaw puzzle.
It was a sleek, segmented silhouette that screamed 'Kamen Rider', much more than Marvel or Power Ranger style, due to the lack of spandex, and due to the streamlined armor segments. As the metal reached his neck, a second cloud of nanobots spiraled around his head. They flowed together, hardening into a sealed, aerodynamic helmet.
Of course, it was his personalized version of Magneto's own helmet—finally worn together with his armor.
The fusion was striking: the iconic shape of Magneto's helm blended seamlessly into the smooth, reinforced visor of a Power Ranger. With a final, pressurized hiss, the faceplate locked into place.
The electromagnetic flare and electricity pulsed one last time—a bright strobe of purple light and energy bolts that died out as quickly as it had appeared. Max held the final pose for a heartbeat, one armored hand pointed defiantly at the tomb doors while his hovering Desert Eagles remained around him.
He turned his masked head toward Magneto, the visor gleaming in the dim mountain light. "You can call me Kamen Rider Flux," he said, giggling in his head—his voice a filtered, metallic growl through the helmet's external speakers. Max reached down into the snow, grabbed his backpack, and slung it over his armored shoulders, adjusting the straps over the alloy-weave plating. He checked the square barrels of his hovering pistols one last time.
"Armor's hot, guns are gonna be hot... Let's go kill an asshole Pharaoh."
Magneto nodded, both impressed and disgusted at the same time by the show Max had just put on. He spread his arms, and the ground began to vibrate with a high-frequency hum.
Max stepped in close, syncing his atomic vibrations to Magneto's magnetic frequency—the "Polarity" rhythm they'd perfected in the mountains. As Magneto ripped the magnetic dipoles of the bedrock apart, Max softened the molecular bonds of the limestone. The ground didn't explode; it surrendered. The mountain wall crumbled around the door. Magneto shaped his orbs into thin spears and fired them into the door, changing their shape while embedded to form thousands of barbs and pulling, easily ejecting the stone door far behind them into the snow down the mountain.
Using Max's meta-knowledge from watching the show—and also utilizing his [destiny] power—they "speed-ran" the tomb's ancient defenses. They cheated the first lock by ignoring the puzzle entirely; Magneto simply manipulated the internal iron latches to groan the stone doors open.
When the massive Guardian Spider dropped from the ceiling, they didn't hesitate. Even though Magneto and Max were likely the only two beings powerful enough to beat the machine in a straight fight, they combined the spider's own components to crush it instantly.
It was a risky move—Max knew that if they had left the Guardian alone, it would have acted as a permanent barrier to keep everyone else away from the tomb. By destroying it, they were actually clearing the way for Apocalypse to rise.
Still, they were determined to be the ones to end the "Eternal One" personally, regardless of the risk.
Finally, they reached the third lock—the one that had turned Mystique to stone in the cartoon. Max gave the warning, and Magneto adjusted. Instead of touching the mechanism, Erik formed a needle-thin strand of metal to bypass the lock and press the mechanism from the other side.
The door slid open without a sound, and unlike the original timeline, Magneto remained flesh and blood. They stepped into the inner sanctum, the blue glow of the life-support system illuminating the massive, sleeping form of Apocalypse.
They stepped into the heart of the machine. Blue light pulsed from the floor like veins. In the center of the room, the emancipated En Sabah Nur lay encased in a translucent sarcophagus, the strange thing was, the lid was floating in the air, hovering instead of closed like it should be.
Max brought both floating guns in close and grabbed hold of them, getting prepared, the square barrels catching the eerie blue light. "He looks smaller when he's not ranting about the 'strong surviving', on a Saturday morning cartoon..." Max whispered to himself.
Erik stood over the sarcophagus, out of reach of the ancient mutant, his hands crackling with purple energy. "Give the word, Flux. Do we dismantle the machine, or do I bury him under ten thousand tons of his own hubris?"
"...Both."