"They're just kids, Magneto," Logan growled, his jaw tight as he stared at the mutant king. "This wasn't their fight, and they sure as hell weren't ready for a walking nuke."
"Both you and Scott have thrown yourselves against enemies who fundamentally outclassed you," Magneto replied, entirely unbothered. He didn't even look at the Wolverine. Instead, Magneto raised his right hand and simply snapped his fingers.
Deep beneath the bedrock of the island, massive electromagnetic fields forcefully grabbed the copper coils of Genosha's primary turbine generators. With a deafening, bass-heavy hum that vibrated up through the soles of their boots, the island's entire power grid violently surged back to life. Streetlights blazed. Neon signs flickered on. Magneto was deliberately lighting up the city like a beacon, actively hoping the sudden surge in voltage would bait the starving Electro back into his reach.
Logan just stared at him, his fists clenching tight enough to make the leather of his gloves creak.
"Sorry to interrupt the intense staring contest," Peter said, stepping between the two men, "but the most pressing issue right now is that Max Dillon just escaped. And he's starving."
Peter tapped the side of his mask. "He drained the residual charge completely out of my communicator. I can't even ping the Avengers. He's weak, and he needs a massive power source to stabilize his new energy form. The closest, biggest all-you-can-eat buffet on the East Coast is the Arc Reactor sitting in the basement of Avengers Tower."
Magneto lowered his hand, his expression shifting into something resembling mild apology. "I appreciate your assistance tonight, Spider-Man. But Genosha's telecommunications array was fried in the initial blackout. I cannot contact the mainland for you." Magneto turned his head. "However, I can provide transportation. My son, Pietro, will run you back to Manhattan."
Logan crossed his arms. "I'll have Kitty and the kids use the Blackbird's emergency comms to warn S.H.I.E.L.D. once we get back to the hangar. You go on ahead, kid." Logan shot Magneto a dark look. "I'm pretty sure Erik and I still have a lot to discuss."
A localized sonic boom shattered the quiet of the plaza. A violent gust of wind kicked up dust and loose debris, and a silver blur materialized right beside Magneto.
"Hey! I'm here!" Pietro announced, breathing heavily but wearing a massive, arrogant grin. "I just evacuated three hundred people, twenty-three stray dogs, two cats, and—"
"Pietro," Magneto interrupted smoothly, cutting off the rambling. "I need you to transport Spider-Man to Manhattan immediately. You will assist the Avengers in capturing the mutant who crippled our power grid."
"Alright, Dad. No problem," Pietro said, pulling a pair of sleek, aerodynamic goggles over his eyes. He turned to Peter, sizing him up. "Sorry, web-head, but because of my running biomechanics, you've gotta make a choice. I can either throw you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, or you can hold onto me like a backpack."
"Neither," Peter said. He reached out and placed his right hand flat against the center of Pietro's silver track jacket. He commanded the microscopic hairs on his palm to engage, sticking his hand to the fabric with the adhesive force of industrial cement. "I'll just stick to you."
Pietro laughed, a sharp, barking sound. "That works. Try not to puke."
Pietro turned his shoulders, digging his silver sneakers into the pavement. He didn't count down. He just launched.
A deafening crack of displaced air echoed across the plaza.
Traveling alongside Quicksilver at terminal velocity was one of the most physically bizarre experiences of Peter's life. The world didn't just blur; it smeared into a continuous, streaking tunnel of gray and blue. As they hit the coastline and sprinted directly out over the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, Peter realized his boots weren't even touching the water.
More incredibly, Peter didn't feel the crushing G-force or the skin-peeling friction of moving faster than sound. Pietro's body naturally generated a localized aerodynamic slipstream—an invisible air barrier that completely negated the wind resistance and weightlessness for anyone inside his immediate radius.
"How fast can you actually go?!" Peter yelled over the roaring vacuum of the slipstream.
"Normally, I cruise around Mach 5!" Pietro yelled back, casually dodging a cresting ocean wave. "But this is a priority emergency! I'm redlining my sprint speed!"
"What does that mean?!"
"It means the fastest I've ever circled the Earth's equator is roughly three minutes!" Pietro boasted loudly. "But carrying a passenger throws off my center of gravity! It's like a normal guy trying to sprint a mile while holding a bowling ball! It takes technique!"
Before Peter could even process the sheer mathematical absurdity of that statement, the Atlantic Ocean vanished. The concrete jungle of New York City exploded into view.
With a squeal of burning rubber, Pietro skidded to a dead halt.
Peter blinked, his equilibrium desperately trying to catch up. They were standing in the middle of the luxury penthouse lounge on the top floor of Avengers Tower. Pietro pulled off his goggles, casually running a hand through his windblown silver hair to fix his styling.
"Also, you don't need to yell," Pietro added, looking at Peter. "The slipstream carries sound waves perfectly. Wow. This is your base? Your interior design is fantastic. Way better than my dad's gloomy, knock-off European aristocracy vibe. Why are all the lights off?"
The penthouse was pitch black. The only illumination came from the massive flat-screen television mounted on the wall, currently playing a vintage, grainy slasher movie.
Curled up on the velvet sofa in the dark was Janet Van Dyne.
When the silver blur violently exploded out of the private elevator shaft, Janet shrieked in absolute terror. She threw her bowl of popcorn entirely in the air. Operating purely on fight-or-flight instinct, her body instantly shrank to the size of a wasp. She buzzed frantically up to the ceiling, hiding in the shadows of the rafters.
"Intruder alert detected," JARVIS's crisp, British voice echoed from the ceiling.
The penthouse lights snapped on, flooding the room in blinding white LEDs.
The laboratory doors across the hall violently kicked open. Hank Pym stumbled out, holding a heavy hydro-spanner like a baseball bat. "Jan?! What happened?!"
Hank froze. He stared at Peter, who was still casually stuck to the back of a teenager in a silver tracksuit.
"Is this a prank, Spider-Man?" Hank demanded, lowering the wrench.
"Uh, no. Actual emergency," Peter explained quickly, detaching his hand from Pietro's back. "We were in a rush and didn't realize she was having a movie night."
Peter gestured to the speedster. "Doc, this is Pietro Maximoff. His superpower is super-speed. Pietro, the guy with the wrench is Dr. Hank Pym, Ant-Man. And the tiny buzzing sound near the ceiling is Janet, the Wasp."
"Hey everybody. I go by Quicksilver," Pietro smiled, offering a casual two-finger salute. "Code name I gave myself. Pretty catchy, right?"
Hank ignored the teenager, his scientific mind immediately locking onto Peter's posture. "What happened in Genosha?"
"Long story short: Max Dillon's secondary mutation was a success," Peter said, his tone turning deadly serious. "When I tried to stop him, his physical body couldn't handle the stress. He literally self-destructed. He turned into a living entity of pure electrical plasma. And right now? He is starving, and he's flying straight for the Arc Reactor in your basement."
Janet buzzed down from the ceiling, expanding back to her normal size in a flash of shifting mass. She brushed popcorn butter off her leggings, her eyes wide.
Hank's brow furrowed in deep concentration. "What is Max's current biological storage limit?"
"I have absolutely no idea," Peter admitted. "But the amount of voltage he vented before he blew was catastrophic. Like a localized thunderstorm. He drained Genosha's entire grid in a single breath, and he didn't even look like he had hit his ceiling."
Hank's face went entirely pale.
High above the Atlantic Ocean, Max Dillon was a streak of pure, crackling blue energy.
Without a physical, fleshy body to weigh him down, he should have been moving at the speed of light. But he was weak. The hunger gnawing at his central consciousness was paralyzing.
As he tore through the cloud cover, Max felt a sudden, massive electromagnetic spike behind him. Genosha's power grid had just flared back to life.
Max slowed his flight path, hovering in the freezing air. The magnetic pull of that raw electricity was intoxicating. He turned around, fully intending to fly back to the island and gorge himself on the restored generators.
Before he could accelerate, a sharp, melodic female voice echoed directly inside his mind.
Do not be a fool.
Max flinched, his plasma form rippling. It was Miss Sinister.
Do not think for a second that Magneto simply left the lights on for you, her telepathic voice sneered. He is baiting you. You are a being of raw electromagnetism. He is the absolute master of that domain. If you do not wish to seek your own immediate death, do not even think about confronting Magneto head-on.
Electro shuddered. The telepath was right. He vividly remembered Spider-Man nearly beating him into a coma. If he went back, Magneto wouldn't just arrest him; the mutant king would likely disperse his atoms into the vacuum of space.
He needed to eat, but he needed to be smart about it.
He turned his glowing blue eyes back toward the American coastline. Manhattan.
The Arc Reactor beneath Avengers Tower was a legendary piece of Stark engineering. It generated clean, sustainable energy capable of powering the entire skyscraper complex for three consecutive years without refueling. That single reactor held more concentrated, delicious current than the entirety of Genosha's grid combined. Plus, once he cracked the reactor, he could easily tap into the rest of the New York City subterranean power system.
It wasn't just a meal. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Max let out a crackling, distorted laugh that echoed like thunder over the ocean. He lowered his head, accelerating toward New York City.