There was a beat of silence between them.
Magneto hovered in the smoky air, his cape billowing behind him like the shroud of a prophet, his expression unreadable. His voice came low, deliberate.
"Metahuman?"
Gojo raised a brow. "What?"
Magneto's eyes narrowed.
"Why do you use that word?" he asked, tone clipped. "Metahuman."
Gojo tilted his head, floating with his arms still casually at his sides.
"Because that's how I see our kind," he said simply.
"Evolved humans. 'Meta' beyond. Beyond the limits, the norms. Not something broken or unnatural… just different and Advanced."
He glanced down toward the city, voice sharpening.
"It's better than calling ourselves abominations. Better than swallowing a label like mutant, a word they crafted just to make us easier to fear, easier to separate, easier to hunt."
He looked Magneto dead in the eye.
"You don't see it?"
"Mutant." He almost spat the word.
"It sounds like a disease. Like something to be quarantined. Something shameful, pitiful. Even when we say it ourselves, we're reinforcing their narrative."
Magneto's face remained hard, unreadable.
"That word was never ours to begin with," Gojo said, quieter now.
"It was given to us out of fear. Out of ignorance. They branded us with it before they even knew who we were."
Then Gojo lifted his chin slightly, and for the first time, the air around him grew colder.
"I will not be addressed by the language of cowards."
"I am a metahuman. Whether they like it or not."
Magneto's lips curled, his voice lined with age and scarred memory.
"Be that as it may…"he said with an edge now, eyes narrowing,
"You know next to nothing of how truly cruel this world can be."
Gojo didn't flinch.
"Oh?"
A smirk tugged at the edge of his lips.
"You'd be surprised at how much I know about this world."
"You could say I have or had an overview of it. Every system, every failure, every war, every lie passed off as progress."
He paused, eyes gleaming.
"And I know you, Magneto."
That gave the older man pause.
"I know how you think."
Magneto scoffed, nostrils flaring. His voice darkened like thunder behind steel.
"If you truly knew how I think, boy…"
"…we wouldn't be here right now."
There was real hostility in the words, a simmering warning in every syllable. His fingers twitched as the air around him shimmered faintly with magnetic distortion.
But before another word could pass—
CRACK.
A gunshot echoed sharply from below.
The bullet didn't reach its mark. It froze mid-air—mere feet from Magneto's face—caught in his invisible web of magnetic control. He didn't even blink.
Gojo turned his head sharply, eyes narrowing.
Below, through a break in the smoke and rubble, stood a man and a woman clothes torn, faces pale. The man's shirt clung to his body, soaked in sweat and dirt. The woman, bleeding from her temple, clutched a trembling toddler to her chest. The child's face was tear-streaked, eyes wide in raw, primal fear.
The gun in the man's hand trembled. A desperate act. A last stand. Or perhaps just an instinctive, suicidal burst of terror.
Gojo's heart dropped slightly.
"Idiot."
He turned in time to see Magneto raise a hand, already prepared to return the bullet and the favor.
His expression was calm.
Gojo's voice cracked through the air before the moment could spiral.
"Magneto No."
The bullet sang through the air.
Its path was linear, precise and was reflected in the shimmering clarity of Gojo's uncovered eyes.
Magneto's face was stone, Unapologetic and Unyielding. He was going to murder them if he didn't do anything to stop the man.
But before the bullet could find flesh
TINK!
A soft ripple of force shimmered midair.
Jean Grey's telekinetic shield caught it just inches from its target, halting its momentum as though time itself had paused. She hovered slightly above the ground a few meters from the family, hands outstretched , a translucent field wrapping around the man, woman, and child.
"They're safe now GO!" She shouted toward the other civilians who were dumb enough to stay and watch when they should be running for their lives.
Back in the air, Gojo had already moved.
His hand lashed out and Magneto was hurled backward in a sudden, invisible shove, a shockwave of telekinetic force rippling out from Gojo's core.
Magneto steadied himself midair with a low metallic hum, eyes burning.
"Get out of my way, boy."
Gojo didn't flinch.
"No."
Magneto's jaw clenched.
"Do you think you are a match for me?" he growled, voice layered with the deep thrum of power. The electromagnetic field around him began to vibrate, humming like the prelude to a storm.
Gojo smirked, turning his body slightly.
"Let's find out."
Then, without breaking eye contact, he tilted his head toward the rest of the team behind him.
"Get them out of here."
Without any hesitation from magneto, all the metallic debris around them moved.
SHRIEK CLANG ZIP!
Metallic projectiles screamed through the blades, bolts, nails, twisted shrapnel, all converging on Gojo like a deadly swarm.
He didn't raise a hand.
Instead, the air around him shimmered and within three feet of his body, the temperature suddenly spiked drastically. Waves of blistering heat rolled outward. The projectiles began to glow bright red as they got close to him, their forms softening mid-flight, warping, bubbling as they started to melt before they could even graze his barrier.
The melted slag hit the ground with a hiss.
"Holy hell,"Beast muttered, backing up with wide eyes.
"MOVE!" Logan barked, voice cutting through the chaos.
"We ain't got time for gawking everyone head for the plane!"
Storm turned, helping Jean guide the civilians toward the extraction point.
"What about Gojo?!" Rogue shouted, still watching the escalating duel above.
Logan didn't even look back.
"The bub'll be fine!" he snapped.
Then his nose twitched. His eyes narrowed.
"Besides…" he sniffed the air again.
"We got company."
A blur of silver streaked past them, a gust of displaced wind trailing behind.
"Quicksilver!"Beast growled.
The others turned only to find four more figures emerging through the dust and debris, blocking their path.
Avalanche, fists clenched, causing the ground beneath their feet to tremble and fracture cutting off their path to the plane.
Pyro, flame dancing along his fingers like he was toying with it with Toad to his right, crouched with that twisted grin.
And Blob, arms folded with a stupid grin on his face.
Rogue's eyes went wide.
"Well… damn it's this guys again."
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