amaotonovel Chapter 4699 X Royal Clash (5)
Chapter 4699 X Royal Clash (5)
Chapter 4699 X Royal Family: Fierce Battle (Part 5)
"What do you mean by this?!" the supervisor shouted. "You despicable mutants, are you trying to kidnap us?!"
“We are trying to save you,” Magneto said calmly. “The two Avengers outside are locked in a fierce battle. What difference would it make if you went out now? Even if the Avengers don’t kill you, those who don’t want Redgate Orchid Factory to fall into enemy hands won’t let you go.”
Stark couldn't help but glance at Magneto a couple more times. This universe's Magneto had a truly good temper; it wasn't just that he was emotionally stable, he was practically a great philanthropist.
It's important to understand that the people in this lab developed the Redgate Orchid factory and the master mold; they could practically be considered enemies of mutants. Magneto can still calmly explain here that it's no wonder other Magnetos wear black suits, while his is white. Different-colored mutants are indeed different.
However, having a good temper also has its downsides. In the short time it took him to explain, the woman with the gun next to the supervisor suddenly pressed a button. Stark felt a subtle vibration coming from below the laboratory, as if something had been released.
Magneto sensed something too; his expression changed, and he whirled around. A massive body burst through the floor and flew into the laboratory. Magneto gritted his teeth and said, "Sentinel robots!"
Stark turned to look. It was an extremely tall and imposing silver-gray robot. However, because the mutants in the central universe had developed so successfully, Stark hadn't studied the Sentinel robots. He only knew that these robots seemed to be divided into several levels, and judging from Magneto's expression, the one in front of him was quite high-level.
“You take them with you first,” Stark said to Magneto.
Before he could finish speaking, the robot's eyes flashed red, its hunting program activated, and it instantly charged towards Magneto. Stark wasn't about to give him that chance; a shield formed from information flow instantly solidified into a barrier, blocking Magneto's path. But the robot charged forward, and the barrier shattered. Stark raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t confront him head-on,” Magneto’s eyes also lit up. “This guy is at least a Level 6 Sentinel, stronger than Captain America, and has the ability to weaken the effects of the X-gene in a wide area. We can’t let him activate his weakening aura, or the portal from my mutant ability might disappear!”
Seeing the Sentinel robot arrive, the two Spider-Men couldn't sit still any longer and rushed into the battlefield one after the other. One used his webs to bind the robot's legs and pulled it outwards, while the other kicked it in the back of the neck.
With a thud, the robot was pulled to the ground. But the instant he fell, he flipped over and kicked Spider-Man away from behind, then grabbed the neck of the Spider-Man who had kicked him.
Magneto took a deep breath and raised his hand to attack. But just then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Stark take out a pyramid-shaped reactor core that shimmered with multicolored light and insert it into the center of the Arc Reactor in his chest. In an instant, a dazzling outer shell, shimmering with magical light, adhered to his body, like another kind of mecha. With a wave of his hand, a thick beam of magical power, as thick as half a person, burst forth.
"boom!!!!!!"
A dazzling magical light shone through the valley, blasting all the Avengers who were engaged in the chaotic battle away. The Sentinel robot was slammed heavily onto the mountainside on the other side of the valley, thick black smoke billowing from its entire body.
The Doctor Strange from the local universe turned around in disbelief to look at the large hole blasted into the rock wall. He had sensed the power of at least seven or eight Daedric Princes in that recent magical attack. The Doctor Strange from the main universe has arrived?!
He took a few steps back with some apprehension and said to Captain America, "If that was Doctor Strange from the main universe, then he's stronger than we thought. Let's retreat, Captain."
Captain America was still somewhat unwilling, but he turned his head and glanced at the dark figure that had been blasted out beside him. After recognizing what level of Sentinel robot it was, he immediately swung his shield and shouted, "Retreat!"
The Avengers from the local universe quickly retreated, while the Avengers from the main universe stormed into the laboratory. However, by then, the laboratory was already deserted. After they entered, the Spider-Man from the main universe jumped down from the roof and said, "When I came in, I hacked into the main system, but I couldn't decipher all the data before I was physically destroyed."
He walked over, unplugged the hard drive from the computer, handed it to the main universe's Iron Man, and said, "I don't know if this is enough, take a look, Mr. Stark."
“Well done,” Captain America patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks to you, otherwise we would have returned empty-handed.”
The Spider-Man from the main universe shook his head. There was indeed data on the hard drive, but it wasn't obtained through hacking; he had asked Iron Man from the central universe for it. The reason was simple: they needed to give the main universe's Iron Man some results to study, otherwise he would still go insane. Giving him some technical data was the best way to distract him.
The main universe's Iron Man immediately accessed the contents of the hard drive, and sure enough, his backache was gone, his leg pain was gone, and his anxiety had improved significantly. He didn't utter a single word on the way back, clearly engrossed in studying the data.
Inside the anti-gravity lab, the researchers emerged from the portal with trepidation. Did they not know they were doomed in the hands of mutants? They were probably already thinking about how to die a quick and painless death.
Magneto was the last to emerge from the portal. Watching Stark remove the core and replace it with a regular one, he asked curiously, "Can this be hot-swapped?"
"This can only be hot-swapped. After all, it will be too late to replace it after I die."
Magneto covered his eyes in exasperation, realizing he'd asked a stupid question. Of course, if the Arc Reactor was embedded in the human body, could he possibly shut the person down before unplugging it, without hot-swapping it?
"Did Schiller tell you what you were going to do with bringing these researchers back?" Magneto asked Stark.
Stark paused, then said, "Didn't he tell you?"
Magneto shook his head, about to say something more, when Professor X's voice echoed in the laboratory: "Come to the Central Court, Eric. We need to proceed with the next step of the plan."
Stark and Magneto immediately went to the Central Court's office, where Schiller and Professor X were already waiting. Before the two could speak, Professor X said, "Among those researchers was Dr. Aria Gregor, who led the research at the Redgate Plant. Her husband died in our raid."
Magneto paused for a moment, then said, "So, the target of this operation is her?"
Schiller nodded and said, "In her grief, Dr. Gregor merged the consciousness of her husband, Dr. Mendel, into the Nimrod Sentinel robot that the master model was building."
Stark nodded and said, "That's right. When I was hacking into the external defenses before, I also tried to access the mother model that wasn't fully awake yet. There was an abnormal program that had been manually edited, which looked a bit like a backup of consciousness."
"Does Dr. Gregor have such technology?" Magneto frowned.
“Yes,” Professor X said, “I saw in this doctor’s memory that they had already uploaded their personalities into the Red Gate Orchid Factory’s system.”
"Why do you do this?" Magneto asked.
“Of course, it’s to prevent certain people from killing us to cover their tracks,” Schiller said, shaking his head. “Those people have done this too many times. Scientists aren’t stupid. Even if they can’t fight back, they’ll definitely take precautions in their own way. And now it’s coming in handy.”
“But…” Magneto said hesitantly, “She was killed by mutants, would she be willing to cooperate with us?”
“Wrong,” Schiller said. “If they were not there voluntarily from the beginning, but were forced into the laboratory or the factory, then their enemies are not just those who eventually took action, or not just those, but also those who initially forced them.”
Magneto was still puzzled. He said, "I thought those scientists joined the research team voluntarily to protect the Earth."
Schiller shook his head again: "From the perspective of ordinary people, they have no reason to oppose the establishment of a mutant nation. Or rather, they would love for the mutants to establish a nation and bring all the mutants around them into one country so that they would be safe."
"Don't they think we're trying to rule the world?"
“Then you can rule the earth without establishing a nation,” Schiller said with a hint of helplessness. “Whether you operate on earth as a nation-state is a purely political act, and therefore only related to other political organizations, not to ordinary people.”
Seeing that Magneto still didn't quite understand, Schiller had to explain further: "For ordinary people, the most serious threat is always that of individual mutants. The loss of control by individual mutants could threaten their lives and cause them to suffer property losses. The possibility and threat of so-called domination of the earth are secondary."
"If you don't establish a nation, the threat posed by individual mutants and the possibility of them ruling the Earth will not decrease; if you establish a nation, although the latter possibility will increase slightly, the former threat will decrease. The former is more important for ordinary people, because ordinary people must get through tomorrow before they can talk about the future."
Magneto understood somewhat. He also realized that only the governments of various countries seemed anxious about the mutants establishing a nation; ordinary people didn't seem to care much. In fact, quite a few people supported it. But their support wasn't out of a genuine desire for mutants to have a home; they just wanted the mutants around them to get out of there as soon as possible.
This is similar to the supporters of Zionism. Many Zionist supporters are not Jewish, but rather rivals of the Jewish community in their own countries. These people contributed to the establishment of the Jewish state, hoping to seize the opportunity to expel the Jewish community and prevent them from competing with them.
It is obvious that if a nation belonging exclusively to a certain ethnic group is established, and all members of that ethnic group want a share of the spoils, they will inevitably shift their focus to that nation, which means a weakening of their own power and gives others an opportunity to take advantage of the situation.
Many pro-nationalist Jews may not actually oppose the restoration of their nation; they simply do not want to shift their focus to other countries and are unwilling to relinquish their influence in their own country, which is why they claim to oppose it.
The same applies to mutants. Once a nation belonging to mutants is established, many mutants will yearn for it. In addition, with convenient teleportation portals that allow them to move painlessly without much cost, they will be even more inclined to move.
This is good news for most ordinary people, as it protects them from the harm caused by the emergence of mutant abilities. Therefore, many ordinary people support the establishment of a mutant nation, hoping that the nation will be established today and all the mutants will move away tomorrow to stop threatening their lives.
In other words, many of the scientists in that lab didn't actually hate mutants or oppose mutant nation-building, which is why they went to research the Redgate Plant; they were simply dragged there by the government.