"Why should I care?" Nolan’s voice was calm. "This country is already rotten. Tactical nukes launched without oversight. Military deployments are controlled by corporate interests. You don’t find that suspicious?"
"I was eliminating Hydra."
"The U.S. government tried to stop me."
"So who’s really working with Hydra? The government... or Xavier’s school?"
On the other end of the psychic link, Charles Xavier was stunned into silence.
He had contacted Nolan in a panic after receiving word that a tactical nuclear missile was en route to the Pentagon, redirected by Nolan through a portal.
But Nolan didn’t care.
He wasn’t negotiating.
And just as the warhead breached the portal, hurtling toward the most secure building in America, a blur of red and gold intercepted it.
Tony grabbed the nuke mid-air, channeling a familiar scene once a sacrifice for New York... now, salvation for a government he no longer trusted.
"This ends," Tony growled inside the HUD. "The Malick family is finished."
He attempted to toss the nuke back into the portal but it vanished, sealed.
Nolan, hovering midair, muttered, "Guess they got lucky."
He turned his gaze to the horizon of battleships, submarines, and entire fleets in the waters beyond the harbor.
The air howled as if the planet itself took a breath with him. Every cell in his body is aligned for power output. His lungs, empowered beyond human limits, compressed the atmosphere to a molecular chill.
A vortex of arctic wind surged outward like a superstorm. It ripped across the ocean with the force of a thousand hurricanes—freezing everything in its path.
Waves stopped mid-motion, frozen in place like sculptures.
A blue-white sheet of ice rolled across the sea, expanding with impossible speed. It swept outward like a glacial tsunami, transforming the Atlantic into a mirror of frozen death.
Aboard the U.S. Navy’s flagship, Colonel John Monroe stared at the screen.
"Colonel, you need to see this—"
Red alarms screamed. The radar was exploding with movement blips spreading like wildfire.
"This can’t be real," he whispered.
"Colonel!" his communications officer shouted, "A massive anomaly is heading our way! Fast! Whole surface readings dropping below zero!"
"Evacuate! Full reverse! Warn the fleet! Tell the subs to dive and disengage NOW!"
"But sir... it’s too late!"
Out the observation deck, Monroe saw a wall of ice rushing toward them like a glacier on fast-forward.
A voice crackled through the comms:
"Colonel Monroe, disengage immediately. The target codenamed ’Superman’ has deployed a weather-tier weapon."
"Repeat: this is a global-class strike event."
Monroe slammed his fist into the console. "Why the hell didn’t we know?! What kind of monster did they send us after?!"
Within moments, the ocean beneath their hull turned solid. Steel groaned. Propellers locked. Hulls cracked.
The fleet was immobilized.
Temperature plummeted.
Monroe dropped to his knees, eyes wide as the frost crawled from his boots upward to his legs, chest, spine, heart, and then everything.
Shattered like porcelain.
The same fate befell every soldier aboard.
Across the water were ice-buried submarines, battleships, and cruisers. Engines exploded from the sudden freeze. Crews died screaming or didn’t scream at all.
A continent of ice had replaced the eastern sea.
The ocean gleamed like polished glass.
The world stared in shock.
Even when Nolan had redirected a nuke toward the Pentagon, people still talked.
Because what Nolan just did... wasn’t technology. Wasn’t a trick.
It was power god-tier, planetary, and unmistakably real.
At Xavier’s School, dozens of mutants watched in stunned silence. Their private satellite feed showed the moment the ocean froze.
Iceman, Bobby Drake, swallowed hard.
"That can’t be right," he whispered.
"That’s my power. He copied my power, but I couldn’t even freeze a river."
He looked down at his hands.
"Now he’s freezing oceans..."
"Your ability’s just part of the equation," said Beast, Hank McCoy. "He fused it with Ororo’s storm systems, amplified it with Erik’s magnetic focus—if his mental strength holds, he can magnify his powers beyond your limits."
"Is he... even human anymore?" someone whispered.
Hank adjusted his glasses, face grim.
"I don’t know. But one thing is clear we should start studying his methods. Because Nolan might represent the next evolutionary path."
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