To be perfectly honest, even the commander of the fleet gave the order with clenched teeth. If there had been any other option, he would never have chosen this course of action.
But what else could they do? Martin was rampaging across the United States with an army that could level cities.
And the terrifying part? Just days ago, that same army had been private civilian property. If the military stood by and did nothing, public backlash would be merciless.
So the Atlantic Fleet, acting under urgent orders, approached the coast and issued a stern warning to Martin.
But all it took was a glance, literally. One cold, unreadable look, and the drones they sent out were instantly converted into robots.
The message couldn't have been clearer: back off, or be assimilated.
Inside the war room, America's top generals sat in grim silence, their expressions thunderous.
"He's gone completely rogue. This is madness!"
"What's his endgame?! This is nothing short of a declaration of war against the United States!"
"I demand an immediate countermeasure. I don't care what it is, but we need one, now!"
The room erupted into chaos. Voices shouted over each other in rising panic.
At last, a strategy was slammed down onto the table.
"If we're going to stop him by force, our only viable option is a saturation bombing—full-scale firepower, no holding back. We have to gamble that his ability to generate troops has a limit."
"We still don't know where he's planning to go with that army. But based on psychological profiling, his most likely goal is to establish an offshore base. We cannot, will not, stand by and let a sentient techno-organic faction gain a foothold on Earth."
"Then here's my proposal: unleash full bombardment from the Atlantic Fleet, and launch everything we've got from the West Coast missile silos. Bury Martin. Erase him."
The room fell silent.
No one spoke. Brows furrowed. Faces tightened with unease.
The plan was beyond risky. But Martin's power was beyond anything they'd ever faced. If he were merely building war machines, that would already be bad enough.
But if those machines were alive, true sentient beings, the implications were catastrophic. No way to predict their morals, their goals, their loyalties.
Some objected. Others remained silent, unwilling to take either side.
By the shoreline.
Martin stood by the sea, eyes fixed on the horizon.
The Atlantic Fleet lingered at a cautious distance, never drawing too close. His lips held an unwavering smile, calm and almost amused, but every analyst watching through satellite feed felt an icy dread crawling up their spines.
Then he raised his arms.
Both hands extended, aimed squarely at the Atlantic Fleet.
"Stop, Martin! If you attack them, the military won't hold back!" Professor X's voice rang out telepathically in Martin's mind. "Over a hundred missile sites already have you locked in their crosshairs!"
Martin paused, then chuckled.
"Charles, this is what I've been waiting for. Let them fire all the missiles they want. The more they launch, the more self-detonating soldiers I'll have at my disposal… You of all people should understand what a Tier-4 lifeform is capable of."
In X-Men: Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur had forcibly hijacked Charles Xavier's psychic powers, controlling nuclear launch staff across the globe to unleash Earth's entire nuclear arsenal.
Had they not stopped him in time, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say human civilization would've been obliterated. The surface of the planet rendered uninhabitable.
What Charles had once done under duress, Martin, also a Tier-4 mutant, could replicate by choice. Yet the world still didn't understand the scale of what such beings could do.
This timeline had not yet witnessed Apocalypse's near-extinction event. It hadn't endured the endless clashes between superpowered heroes and villains. It hadn't seen Magneto lose control and flip the Earth's magnetic field to the brink of planetary collapse, though that last one had only occurred in the comics.
A Tier-4 mutant could single-handedly trigger global catastrophe. At that tier, individuals could shape the fate of entire civilizations.
But the world hadn't caught up to that truth.
This was an era when Iron Man had only just been born. The Avengers didn't yet exist. The cosmic threats who could shatter stars with their fists or snuff out suns with a gesture had not yet revealed themselves.
Few people had the context to comprehend the terror that was a Tier-4 lifeform.
Charles's voice returned, more urgent.
"Martin… I don't want to fight you. But what you're doing is destabilizing a world that's already hanging by a thread. Please… stop this. If you don't, I'll be forced to shut you down with psychic force."
"You can't," Martin replied coolly. "I am who I am. No one else. My mind is immune to psychic control, absolutely."
Charles didn't believe him. He summoned his full telepathic power and pushed—
And recoiled in shock.
He slammed into something he'd never felt before. A wall, unseen and immovable. No matter how hard he pushed, he couldn't even glimpse beyond it.
"A psychic block of that scale… Are you a sub-Skyfather class being?!" Charles gasped. "For any sentient lifeform, only two things can stop my telepathy, either greater psychic strength… or some kind of external shielding. You shouldn't be able to do this."
"That's no longer relevant, Charles."
Martin smiled.
Then came the detonation.
With a thunderous surge, the power of the AllSpark erupted outward like a living storm. Its energy howled through the air, cascading in waves of blue light that swept across everything in front of him.
And the Atlantic Fleet... began to awaken.
Hull plating groaned. Cannons shifted of their own accord. Ships once inert surged with new life, ignited by ancient Cybertronian power.
"Open fire! Open fire! Blanket the area! Take that anti-human lunatic down, NOW!!"
A shrill, desperate cry tore from the ranks of the U.S. military command.
Instantly, from the Eastern Seaboard of the Americas, launch silos roared to life.
Missiles, by the dozens, then the hundreds, ripped into the sky, their contrails painting it with streaks of smoke and fury.