The tension inside the plane is thick enough that I can almost taste it, and I don't think it's only because we're literally heading into a war zone to face one of the strongest superhumans on the planet, and we all run a pretty high chance of a gruesome and painful death.
I mean, that's a pretty big part of it, but not the whole problem.
There's a general sense of awkwardness between the teams, especially from the X-Men, who don't exactly have a good track record for their experiences with authority figures at this point, even if the Avengers are still technically just as freelance as they are. Despite what they've managed to do on their own, the X-Men are, at best, seen as obscure outsiders, and at worst, treated with outright hostility, while the Avengers have been largely accepted by both the media and society as a whole, atleast after the initial distrust had settled. Anti-mutant prejudice isn't as visible here as it was in the comics, but that's possibly because mutants are still fairly obscure, and the real hysteria hasn't kicked in yet.
And we're going to be really fucking lucky if Magneto's moronic attempt at world domination doesn't end up kickstarting it. If this spirals into us having to fight Sentinels on the front lawn every other day, I'm going to find Magneto in whatever hole SHIELD drops him in and cram that stupid helmet somewhere he'll have a real hard time wearing it.
"Alright, auto-pilot is engaged. The jet should be able to take us to Santo Marco's borders in little over an hour." Pym says as he hoists himself out of the pilot's seat and moves through the seating area to where both teams have clustered together. Steve and Cyclops are in the middle, having pulled back one of the backrests of the seats to use as an improvised desk for the mission plans, with maps and a few dossiers littered across it.
"Good, then we need to finalize our attack strategy. Cyclops, is there anything you can tell us about what we're facing that wasn't covered by the briefing Professor Xavier gave you?"
Cyclops glances around to the rest of his team, before shaking his head slowly "I'm not sure, Captain. We've only fought Magneto once, I don't know how much more than you we could know about him."
"That's still more than we have. With the exception of Mr. Sunshine, none of us have ever met the man, and from what he told us, the meeting was too brief to gain much intel anyway."
Cyclops snaps around towards me "Wait, what?! When the hell did you meet with Magneto?!"
I shrug "When he tried to recruit me into his super secret club for mutant psychopaths. Same day I met you, actually. You didn't think you were the only ones who wanted a bit of Sunshine to brighten up their particlar cause, did you?"
"You think this is a joke?! You have no idea what Magneto is capable of, the things he's willing to do to get what he wants!"
"Well, we're off to prevent him from taking over a country and launching a genocide, so yeah, I think I have a pretty good idea actually. Plus, he tried to kill me when I turned him down, so there's that, but by all means, keep at it. There's nothing I take seriously more than a lecture from someone who's barely hit puberty yet."
Cyclops face actually reddens, and he opens his mouth to argue further, but is cut off when Jean puts a hand on his shoulder. "Sc-Cyclops, this isn't the time. There's too much at stake right now, so please stop it." She shoots me an annoyed glare "Both of you."
"My sentiments exactly, miss. Whatever is bothering you two, please deal with it on your own time" Steve says in a firm tone, before turning back to the map he'd been going over. "From the scattered reports coming out of the city, it seems Magneto struck with his army early in the morning, taking the entire city centre and disabling the leadership before they could attempt to mount any sort of resistance. What bothers me is how he could bring in a force that large with no one noticing, it'd be impossible, even if he moved them during the night..."
"According to the Professor, it's not the only impossible thing, there aren't enough adult mutants on the planet to fill the ranks of an entire army..." Cyclops says "Even if we assume he's simply been hiring mercenaries to fill his ranks for manpower, that just raises more questions, like how he'd recruit that many men without raising suspicion from SOMEONE."
Steve nods in agreement "Exactly, building an army isn't cheap, and that's just material costs, the logistics alone... but we have another theory, thanks to Mr. Sunshine's information." He looks at me, and it takes a moment before I realize he's waiting for me to take over.
"Oh, uh, yes, that's me, right. Hrrm." I shuffle closer to the seating, tugging the map closer "Okay, so, one of the guys Magneto had with him when he met me is this creepy weirdo with a sad attempt at facial hair who calls himself Mastermind, and other than having the worlds worst fashion sense, his power seems to be conjuring illusions. Now, they don't work on me, because my own powers revolve around light, and since that's all illusions really are, I can see right through them, but from what I can tell, they're actually pretty damn convincing. Sights, sounds, smells, they cover everything other than the fact that they aren't physically there. So..." I poke at the map marker indicating the capital city "What's a good way to convince an entire population to just lay down and take it, even though you only brought five actual people with you?"
"The army isn't real!" Jean gasps "Magneto tricked them into not fighting back by making them think they were outmatched! He's holding the entire city hostage with a bluff!"
"I'd guess he probably has a few actual mercs mixed in with the smoke and mirror ones, just in case he needs to make an example out of somebody, but yeah, my guess is that everyone is hiding under their beds from a bunch of parlor tricks. Not that Magneto and his Brotherhood aren't dangerous on their own, but even they can't subdue 200.000 people by themselves."
"Then that'll be our first objective!" Steve says, as he begins to gather up the documents "We'll need to disrupt the projection Mastermind is creating somehow, dispelling the illusion will be a good first step at liberating Santo Marco. The question is, how?"
"Well, there's the obvious solution" Beast says, deciding to put in his own thoughts to the planning "Taking out Mastermind. The problem there would be to actually get close to him, and I doubt Magneto is letting the lynchpin to his plans out of his sight, so we'd still have to face them together, not to mention the rest of the Brotherhood."
"I mean, we COULD do that. Or, you guys could just leave it up to me!" I hold up my hand, letting the tips of my fingers glow with sunlight "Remember what I said before, about illusions not working on me? Well, I have this new technique I've been working on, that should put Magneto's fake-ass army out of commission. We'll just have to mop up whatever real mercs he's got mixed in with the fakes afterwards."
"You sure it will work, Sunshine?"
"Pretty sure, yeah. What worries me is getting close to the city without Magneto noticing us and tearing the plane out of the sky."
"Actually, we thought ahead on that. Dr. Banner, if you will?" Steve nods towards Banner, who pulls off his glasses and tucks them away in the seat in front of him.
"Right, I suppose it's time. Which one of you X-Men would you sar is the most physically destructive?"
There's a few seconds of hesitation, before Angel and Beast slowly begin to point at Iceman, who's been tucked away in the back of the group, out of sight for most of the journey. Bobby Drake looks between his two teammates in annoyance.
"Oh, seriously, screw you guys!"
...
Presidential Palace, Santo Marco, circa 3 PM Local Time
Magneto observed the nervous-looking man dressed in military fatigues in front of him with a bored expression, his hands clutching at the armrests of the massive chair he'd turned into a throne. One of the first things he had done after making sure President Navidad was... permanently indisposed and unlikely to cause any further trouble was to clear out his former office, removing the mans desk and office chair, and turning the area into an improvised throne room, something to project the proper image for the future ruler of mankind. The "throne", a gaudy, overdesigned bit of furniture decorated with gold leaf and red silk cushioning, presumably dating back to some ostentacious colonial period judging by the laughably outdated design, had been pulled in from another part of the palace by Toad, who had made himself mildly useful for once while the competent members of the Brotherhood were busy with their own orders.
Even now, the misshapen mutant stood at the side of the throne, eyes downcast like a beaten dog. Magneto felt a tiny surge of pity, which was quickly crushed by the familiar feeling of repulsion at his minion's pathetic weakness, and he turned his attention back to the nameless mercenary in front of him.
Well, the man probably wasn't nameless, but Magneto couldn't be bothered to learn the name of a human, temporarily useful as he might be.
"Well? Don't just stand there sweating like an imbecile, give me the report I asked for! Or your subordinate will get a very unexpected promotion!"
"Y-yes, sir!" The man stammered, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand "W-we've encountered minimal resistance from the locals, as you predicted, the President wasn't able to alert the milita before you... overthrew him, and thanks to these... images Mastermind has been projecting, there's been no real attempt from the remaining militia members at fighting back, since they're convinced our forces are much bigger than they actually are, and resistance would be suicide."
"Good, and I take it there has been no attempt from neighboring nations in assisting their so-called ally?"
The man shook his head "No sir, there's been sightings of observing troops across the border, but they only seem to watch our movements, it seems your ultimatum earlier today worked."
"Excellent, it's all coming together" Magneto rose from his throne, and strode over to the window overlooking the plaza below "The ruse isn't going to last forever, but it doesn't need to. Sooner or later, my fellow mutants will grasp the truth of my message, and flock to our shores in their hundreds, an army that will come to me not for coin or land, but for destiny! To seize what is rightfully ours from the human leaders of the world, and no one will be able to stop us!"
Of course, there was a hidden part of his plan that he hadn't shared with anyone, not even the rest of his Brotherhood. Magneto was no fool, he knew that his plans for Santo Marco were a risky gamble even under the most ideal circumstance, but the reward if he were to succeed were too great to not take that chance. But failure wouldn't matter, it would simply slow down the inevitable somewhat. With the world watching, he'd shown what mutants were truly capable of, and the humans would surely descend into hysteria, turning against their mutant citizens in a pathetic attempt at avoiding their own extinction. And so, mutantkind would have no choice but to turn to him for survival.
It was of course an inevitable development, but there was no reason why he couldn't move things along, and let himself control how it all transpired.
Magneto was abruptly pulled from his musings as long-honed reflexes kicked in, just before a strange tremor shook the palace, the window panes rattling in their frames.
"What in damnation?!"
Rushing out through the opening where the balcony doors had been earlier that morning, Magneto ran up to the railing and stared out across the city skyline, just in time to see a cloud of dust arise in the distance, from the area where the city began to give way to the jungle. Whirling around, he turned back towards the mercenary, who stood frozen in the doorway, staring at the rising cloud.
"Get in contact with Quicksilver! I want him over there to see what the hell is going on!"
The man made no move to follow the order.
"Did you get struck deaf in the past 30 seconds! Do as I tell you!" Magneto snarled, feeling the familiar hum of the magnetic fields around him begin to warp as his powers kicked in. The man in front of him was only saved from a gruesome demise when he raised a shaking hand and pointed towards the horizon. Magneto turned back, in time to see a pale mound of ice appear as if out of nowhere on the outskirts of the city, the ice glittering in the afternoon sunlight.
"The X-Men. Of course..."
As he floated off into the air, it didn't occur to him to wonder about the cause of the initial shockwave.