Chapter 54: This World Needs a Villain
"Charles? Erik?"
When Mystique saw her two old friends suddenly appear, surprise instantly appeared on her face.
A young officer lying on the floor nearby seized the chance to pull an electrified net from his coat and fire it at Mystique.
But a weapon capable of conducting electricity was naturally made of metal.
"Stay down!"
Magneto waved his hand, and the electric net flew back onto the young officer. The officer collapsed to the floor, twitching nonstop.
"He is... ugh!"
When Wolverine saw the young officer’s face, a memory surfaced in his mind.
Stryker. The man who would inject adamantium into all of his bones in the future.
"Erik, be careful of them."
Charles suddenly gave Magneto a look and spoke.
"Them? Why?"
Magneto looked toward Orion Cross and the others, whom Charles was watching, and frowned slightly.
"They threatened me before. They said they could erase Raven completely from this world and ensure the future never happens. That little girl’s power is definitely not weaker than yours."
Charles stared closely at Wanda beside Orion Cross. Although Orion Cross had seemed to be provoking him at the time, he kept feeling that something was wrong. A sense of crisis had been circling in his mind the entire time.
"But I think he’s right."
Magneto suddenly interrupted Charles and looked up at Mystique. With a beckoning motion, the pistol flew from Mystique’s hand into his own.
"Erik? Charles, stop him!"
Mystique looked at Magneto in disbelief.
"Sorry. He can’t do that right now. And you, Mystique, as long as you’re alive, mutants will never know peace."
Magneto smiled faintly at Mystique and pulled the trigger.
"No! Erik!"
Charles widened his eyes. At that moment, he hated nothing more than the fact that he had lost his ability and could not stop any of this.
Bang! Hiss!
The bullet was blocked by a wall of flowing sand that suddenly rose up. Even with Magneto using his ability to control the bullet, it could not continue forward through the sand wall.
"I thought our ideas were aligned."
Magneto turned to Orion Cross and spoke.
"Thank you, Orion."
Seeing Orion Cross make a move, Charles let out a huge sigh of relief. At the same time, he felt guilty for suspecting him earlier.
Bang!
While they were speaking, Mystique decisively chose to jump through the window and escape.
Now that Professor X had lost his ability and could not control Magneto, she knew very well how terrifying Magneto’s power was. Even though someone had just protected her, she did not dare stay.
"Perhaps you can try stopping me."
After saying that to Orion Cross, Magneto floated into the air and chased after her.
Beep, beep, beep.
Nearby, Dr. Trask swept the mutant detector over the group, and it finally stopped on Orion Cross.
"You’re not a mutant?!"
Trask looked at the red light that had gone out on the device, utterly shocked.
If he was not a mutant, then what had that sand-controlling method just now been?
"Orion, please. Stop Erik!"
Charles glanced at Beast Hank, who had chased out after them, and knew that Beast alone could not possibly stand against Magneto. He could only place his hopes on Orion Cross.
At this moment, Wolverine had become emotionally agitated after seeing Stryker, causing Shadowcat’s ability to become unstable. For a moment, two streams of consciousness clashed with each other, leaving his body uncontrollable as he leaned against the wall.
As for Wanda and Pietro, they both followed Orion Cross and took him as their lead.
"Actually, Logan, even if you reverse this future, how can you be sure the new future won’t have an apocalypse of its own?"
Orion Cross ignored Charles’s plea, walked beside Wolverine, and spoke to him.
"So you’re going to let Erik kill Raven?" Charles clutched his head and said in pain.
"No. What I mean is, even without Mystique, as long as mutants exist, ordinary people’s jealousy and fear will never disappear."
"Even if you save the world, when an era of peace arrives, your abilities will become something those people fear."
Orion Cross was not exaggerating. After Wolverine reversed the future, a new "apocalypse" still arrived.
In Logan, because of the spread of genetically modified food, no new mutants could be born anymore. Professor X’s dementia killed most of the students, and Wolverine’s healing factor also gradually failed.
Ordinary people feared the power of mutants and wanted to erase mutants, yet they also longed to obtain and control mutant abilities for themselves.
"What exactly are you trying to do?"
Charles gradually sensed something unusual. Orion Cross did not seem to simply want to erase Mystique to save the future. It was as if he had an even grander goal.
"I can help you solve this problem, but I’ll take Mystique with me to another world where there are no mutants," Orion Cross said.
After painfully struggling between "Mystique being killed and mutants going extinct" and "Mystique being taken to a world where she would not be discriminated against," Charles slowly raised his head. "How are you planning to solve it?"
"Simple."
Orion Cross glanced at the doctor holding the X-gene detector, then slowly walked to the window. "This world needs a villain. I’ll be that villain."
Boom!
A beam of golden sunlight shone down on Orion Cross.
When the dazzling light faded, Orion Cross’s ordinary clothes had vanished. A golden crown and long robe adorned his body, his long sleeves drifting in the air, and a mysterious golden staff was gripped in his hand.
Ascended Mode, activated!
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