"Say one more word, and I'll shove these claws straight up your ass!"
Logan had reached the end of his patience and snarled out the threat viciously.
"Ah-oh."
Peter Parker raised a finger to his lips and mimed zipping them shut, showing that he would keep quiet.
Logan dug at his ear, then turned his gaze back toward the Statue of Liberty in the distance.
The towering monument was now riddled with damage. The torch that had once been held high in its right hand was already gone.
Several helicopters were circling over Liberty Island, while large numbers of heavily armed soldiers had already sealed off the entire area.
"Still too late."
Logan let out a sigh.
But since New York still looked calm and peaceful, that meant the X-Men had successfully stopped Magneto's scheme.
"I need to go."
Logan looked back at Peter Parker. "My friends are probably already waiting for me."
"Your friends?"
Peter Parker sprang up onto a rooftop billboard in a flash and peered out toward the East River. "Where are your friends?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Logan snorted dismissively and turned to look.
In the distance, the fog Storm had summoned had long since cleared. The broad river showed no trace whatsoever of the Blackbird.
The expression on Logan's face instantly froze.
"No way..."
...
The next day, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
"Morning, Fenris."
"Morning, Ryan."
As Fenris wandered down from his cabin in the hills toward the school, he happened to see a group of half-grown kids crammed together on the couch watching TV.
Ryan, the porcupine-like kid, had spikes protruding from his back, and somehow there were fruit and snacks skewered on them.
The moment he saw Fenris, a bright grin spread across Ryan's face. "Fenris, want an apple?"
"Sure. Toss me one."
Fenris nodded. In the next instant, a spike with an apple stuck on it shot toward him at incredible speed.
"Whoa!"
Fenris jumped slightly but caught the apple neatly.
"As expected of Fenris."
Ryan grinned smugly.
"Oh, Fenris."
As the two joked around, Storm stepped out from the side and greeted him with a smile. "Why aren't you resting longer today?"
"Just came out to get some air." Fenris found a place to sit down. "Where's Scott? Haven't seen him around."
"After the Professor found Logan through Cerebro, Scott went out to pick him up." Ororo shrugged. "But for some reason, neither of them is back yet."
Fenris's expression turned a little strange. "You don't think they started fighting on the way back, do you?"
"Entirely possible." Ororo nodded in full agreement.
"Wow, teacher, is that you?"
In the middle of their conversation, the children suddenly cried out in amazement. Ororo followed their gaze toward the TV.
The news was currently showing footage from the Liberty Island incident the night before.
In the shaky footage, a towering cyclone that seemed to connect heaven and earth was raging beside the Statue of Liberty. Nearby trees twisted and bent in the howling winds, almost on the verge of being ripped out by the roots.
Two figures could be seen flickering in and out within the storm. The scene looked almost like gods descending, and the children immediately burst into excited exclamations.
"Haha."
Ororo smiled, but her gaze slid over to Fenris at her side. The image of him crashing through that storm like a divine weapon and taking down Riptide was still vivid in her mind.
"Last night, a powerful white light suddenly appeared over the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island for unknown reasons, but it vanished soon afterward..."
A reporter's voice came through the television.
"Video footage also shows that the area was struck by violent storm activity earlier, and there are traces of laser weapons from an unknown source being fired, seriously disrupting the United Nations summit on Ellis Island."
"According to unverified reports, this anomaly was the result of a planned action by the mutant leader Magneto. The primary purpose appears to have been intimidation, aimed at stopping the mutant legislation from passing. However, a mysterious force intervened and thwarted Magneto's plan, preserving the safety of New York City."
"Coincidentally, early this morning, discussion of the Mutant Registration Act was postponed once again. Ms. Jean Grey appeared before the council and emphasized that mutants are born from ordinary people, and can also live in harmony with ordinary people. She also stated that the establishment of a Department of Mutant Affairs is an urgent priority..."
One blurry photo after another appeared on the screen. In one of them, Fenris could vaguely make out the thick red optic beam Scott had fired, along with the unclear silhouette of a huge figure.
"What a mess."
Fenris could not help sighing.
Ororo gave a helpless shrug. "If not for Magneto, we wouldn't have had to do any of this."
"No, you're wrong."
Fenris turned his head and corrected her. "Mutants can't be without the Professor, and they can't be without Magneto either. Only when both of them exist at the same time does the mutant situation avoid becoming even worse."
"Isn't it already bad enough?" Ororo shot back.
Her question made Fenris pause.
He suddenly thought of the two futures mutants could end up facing.
In the first, humanity developed Sentinels and drove all mutants completely into extinction-level despair.
Later on, even ordinary people who carried the X-gene without having awakened, along with ordinary people who had once helped mutants, were slaughtered by the Sentinels.
In the second, humanity developed genetically modified food that gradually stripped awakened mutants of their powers and prevented those who had not yet awakened from ever awakening at all, directly leading to the extinction of mutantkind.
Either of those futures was a hundred times worse than the present, because at least right now mutants still had the right to speak.
"Who knows?"
Fenris shrugged.
"What do you think, Fenris?"
A gentle male voice suddenly sounded from behind them.
"Professor, compared to all that, what I actually care about is when my reactor is finally going to be finished."
Fenris casually flicked the apple core in his hand, and it sailed neatly into a nearby trash can.
"As a mutant yourself, do you really not care at all about what those people are saying?"
Professor X pointed toward the television, where another anti-mutant protest was being shown in New York.
"This is a fight for survival. Shouting alone won't solve anything." Fenris spoke dismissively. "Besides, if you really wanted to, none of this would even count as a problem."
As one of the strongest telepaths in the world, Professor X's power was actually terrifying beyond measure.
War or peace, survival or destruction, all of it could hinge on a single thought from him.
If he truly wanted to, he could reshape the entire world as he pleased, and only a tiny handful of people would ever realize it had happened.
"..."
Fenris's words plunged Professor X straight into silence.
He really was a man of deep principles. Those principles had made him who he was, but they also bound him.
"All right, I'm heading back."
Fenris patted off his clothes and got to his feet.
"Next time you get lost, walk your own way home."
The moment Fenris stepped out the door, he saw Scott limping back from the distance with a grimace, his face bruised black and blue in several places.
Logan followed behind him without saying a word.
"What happened? You two get in a fight?"
Fenris stopped Scott and asked quietly.
"Who else could it be but Logan? I went out of my way to pick him up, and he turned around and punched me, saying I left him behind on purpose."
Scott looked indignant. "Azazel teleported him who-knows-how-far away. Without the Professor's Cerebro, how were we supposed to know where he ended up?"
"Hey..."
Logan scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
Fenris froze for a moment, just about to speak, when a sudden disturbance came from the long-silent Titan Encyclopedia.
A strange sensation extended from it at once, pointing directly at Logan.
"This is..."
Fenris's breathing caught, and he forgot the words that had already reached his lips.
The Titan Encyclopedia appeared before his eyes, and his thoughts lightly turned its pages.
The second page had now quietly opened a crack.