"Boss is heading to the roof?"
Max looked up his senses on high alert. Even among Oscorp's elite, only he could perceive Nolan's bioelectric signal, crackling like a supernova in a thunderstorm.
While everyone else gave off weak pulses like whispers in static Nolan's presence was a goddamn lightning strike, cutting through the entire Oscorp building.
That surge... meant something big.
"Hey, big guy put the game down. We're going up."
Aleksei didn't argue. The towering Russian thug-turned-bioengineered juggernaut fumbled his clumsy thumbs off the gaming tablet. "Coming, Second Boss!"
Max grinned. Ever since Nolan created the Vanguard Division Oscorp's private strike team he'd become Second in Command, and Aleksei treated him like royalty.
Together, they rode the reinforced elevator to the rooftop.
When the doors opened—
Aleksei's jaw dropped.
Above them, the sky was screaming.
Dark clouds coiled like serpents. Winds howled like banshees. And at the center of it all... stood Nolan.
Shirtless, calm, powerful.
And the world bent to his breath.
A tornado exploded outward from his lungs gargantuan, spiraling, and laced with sub-zero winds. The air pressure dropped like a crashing elevator. Cold rained down as the spinning vortex ripped clouds apart, drawing hail and lightning with it.
Across New York, civilians looked up in shock as a monstrous cyclone formed above Oscorp Tower reaching toward the heavens like a god's declaration of war.
Meanwhile, at Stark Tower...
Tony stared at the screen in silence.
Footage of Captain America carrying Bucky Barnes' lifeless body played on a loop. A still frame. A moment frozen in time.
Stark had given the order.
After everything, the truth about his parents, about Hydra, about the betrayals, Bucky had become just another weapon. And Stark didn't tolerate weapons pointed at him.
He dismissed his new psychologist.
He didn't need therapy. He needed control.
Control over people like them.
Rogue variables wrapped in human skin.
"Sir," Friday's voice interrupted. "There's something you need to see. Satellite footage urgent."
Tony sighed. "This better not be another Skrull sighting in Newark."
"It's not, sir. Location: Oscorp Tower."
That got his attention.
He sat up, eyes narrowing as Friday pulled up the live feed.
The sky ripped open above Nolan's building.
A cyclone—titanic, icy, unnatural—was spinning from above, not from the ground.
There he was—Nolan—hovering midair, exhaling weather from his lungs.
Tornado winds. Freezing hail. Electrical interference in the clouds.
"Is he... summoning a hurricane?!"
Friday responded, deadpan: "Meteorologists are calling it a Category 6 anomaly, sir."
Tony's voice dropped to a whisper. "Is this guy even human... or did we just invent a new category of weapon?"
Back at Xavier's Institute...
Beast—Dr. Hank McCoy—adjusted his spectacles as his console lit up with alerts.
He had just finished reading Nolan's terrifyingly well-written thesis on X-gene magnetic field amplification theory.
A genius-level analysis. Too genius.
He was about to email back when Charles Xavier's voice crackled through the intercom.
"Hank, I'm sending you coordinates. A mutant just awakened. Massive spike in ambient power."
Hank punched in the data.
His screen zoomed in on the coordinates.
"Wait... Oscorp Tower?"
He watched as the satellite feed showed the exact same thing Tony Stark had just seen.
An impossible weather system... stemming from a single man.
"...This isn't a mutant awakening," Hank whispered.
He pulled out his phone. "Charles—you need to see this."
As Xavier viewed the footage, the realization hit them both.
"He's combined Ororo and Bobby's powers," Hank muttered. "Storm... and Iceman."
Xavier's voice was steady. "No. He's not just combining. He's weaponizing."
"Charles," Hank said gravely. "He's done it. He's proven his theory."
"...Then cancel the meeting. We're going to Oscorp. Now."
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