"Not good!"
Inside the Sokovian command center, Baron Strucker's eyes narrowed as he slammed the defensive override.
On the battlefield, the Magneto cyborg instantly gathered every scrap of metal within range, stacking them into a dense, multi-layered defensive wall at his feet while simultaneously ratcheting the surrounding magnetic field to its absolute peak.
*BOOM!*
The Kamehameha collided with the improvised metallic barricade with the roar of a dying star. The metal plates didn't just melt—they vaporized instantly, turning into a glowing mist of ionized gas. Despite the resistance, the blue pillar of energy continued to push forward toward the cyborg at a steady, terrifying pace.
*Beep! Beep! RED ALERT!*
"Baron! The energy density of the impact zone is exceeding all projected safety limits! If this continues, the magnetic containment will fail!" the lead scientist shouted, sweat pouring down his face as he watched the warning lights flicker like a heartbeat.
Strucker gritted his teeth. Magneto was desperately pulling every bit of metal he could find—remnants of the exploded SUVs, iron ore from deep beneath the desert soil—trying to feed the wall as fast as the beam consumed it.
It was a losing game. It was only a matter of time before the beam punched through the magnetic field and hit the cyborg's organic core.
If that beam could erase X-24, the cyborg's fragile human body would be reduced to ash in a microsecond.
"Damn it!"
Strucker's pulse quickened. He hadn't expected a "wild" mutant to possess this level of output. More importantly, the boy's combat experience was far too refined; he wasn't just flailing with power, he was focusing it with surgical intent.
But Strucker hadn't survived this long by playing fair. His fingers flew across the control terminal. While maintaining the metal wall with one hand, the Magneto cyborg suddenly extended his other hand toward the limo.
Because of the Adamantium laced into their skeletons, Logan and Laura were instantly yanked off their feet. They were pulled through the air like iron filings to a magnet, positioned directly in front of the cyborg as living shields.
"You coward!"
Goku saw the energy beam beginning to lick at the heels of Logan and Laura. He had no choice. With a violent grunt, he flicked his wrists, diverting the trajectory of the Kamehameha at the last possible second. The beam screamed past the cyborg and carved a massive, molten trench into the distant mountainside.
The cessation of the beam gave Goku an opening, but he didn't waste it on words. He kicked off the ground with such force that the road beneath him shattered into a crater, launching himself like a surface-to-air missile toward the hovering Magneto.
Strucker realized the boy was too fast to keep as a hostage at close range. He released his grip on Logan and Laura, choosing instead to focus his processing power on flight and defense.
Logan hit the ground hard, rolling to his feet. He grabbed Laura, who was already baring her claws to jump back into the fray, and dragged her toward the limo.
"Go! We have to move!" Logan barked at Gabriela.
He knew that staying here made them liabilities. Magneto's power over them was absolute; they were nothing but tools for the cyborg to use against Goku. The further they were from the magnetic field, the less power the old man had over their bodies.
High in the air, Goku faced a storm of metallic shards. Strucker had broken down the defensive wall and reshaped it into thousands of vibrating, razor-sharp needles.
Goku didn't flinch. Relying on a body so dense that bullets couldn't pierce his skin, he smashed through the projectiles with his bare fists. He moved with impossible grace, using the very blades sent to kill him as stepping stones, kicking off them to maintain his momentum and stay on the cyborg's tail.
"Abort the attack! Evasive maneuvers!"
Seeing that the metal was only providing the boy with more mobility, Strucker recalled the shards, forming a tight defensive sphere around the cyborg.
He began flying in a jagged, unpredictable pattern, climbing higher and higher into the atmosphere. Without something to kick off of, he assumed the boy would eventually be forced back to earth by gravity.
Sure enough, once the blades were gone, Goku's upward arc peaked. He began to plummet.
"Nimbus...! Wait, no." Goku caught himself. "Master Roshi said I shouldn't rely on the Flying Nimbus during my training."
He had made a promise to push himself to his limits. Fortunately, the Turtle School wasn't his only source of inspiration.
Suddenly, Goku's tail began to spin behind him at a blinding speed. Like the blades of a high-performance helicopter, the rotation generated a surging lift that stabilized his fall and then pushed him back upward.
"What?! That's... that's physically impossible!"
In Sokovia, Strucker's jaw nearly hit the floor. A tail wasn't a propeller; no matter how fast it spun, it shouldn't be able to lift a human-sized mass. He didn't understand that Goku wasn't just using physics—he was lacing the rotation with his Ki, creating a localized vortex of energy.
"Dodon Ray!"
The tail provided the lift, but Goku provided the pressure. He fired several rapid-fire yellow beams from his fingertips. Unlike the Kamehameha, the Dodon Ray was nearly instantaneous. Each shot pierced the cyborg's metal shielding, forcing Strucker to divert energy from flight to constant structural repairs.
"I'll wear you down, you little brat!"
Strucker was fuming. He couldn't shake the boy, but he still believed in his victory. The cyborg was a machine; it didn't feel fatigue, and it didn't need to breathe. As a Level 4 mutant, Magneto's core could sustain this output for days.
The boy, however, was already showing signs of wear. The scanner in the cyborg's eyes analyzed Goku's vitals: his heart rate was elevated, and his movements were a fraction of a percent slower than they had been at the start of the fight.
'I just have to wait until tonight,' Strucker thought with a cruel smile. 'Once his stamina hits zero, I'll crush every bone in his body.'
As the sun began to dip below the horizon, casting long, bloody shadows across the desert, Logan watched the aerial duel from a distance.
He had sent Gabriela, the Professor, and Laura ahead to a town called Piñon while he stayed behind, lurking in the tall grass with his sniper rifle and that single Adamantium bullet.
The sky turned a deep, bruised purple. Then, the first sliver of a full moon rose over the ridge.
In mid-air, Goku suddenly froze. His chase stopped. His heart began to thud against his ribs like a war drum—*lub-dub, lub-dub*—loud enough for the cyborg's sensors to pick up. His pupils dilated until his eyes were nothing but black voids.
"Finally out of gas?" Strucker laughed, seeing the boy go limp and begin to fall toward the earth.
He didn't waste a second. He commanded the metal wreckage on the ground to coil upward like snakes, forming heavy shackles that snapped shut around Goku's wrists and ankles the moment he touched the dirt.
But Goku wasn't looking at the metal. He was staring, wide-eyed and unblinking, at the moon.