Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, situated just outside the city of Twist, had always been an isolated institution. Surrounded by quiet forests and long, empty roads, it existed in peaceful seclusion. There were no neighboring buildings, no bustling towns nearby—just nature, silence, and the occasional distant hum of city life.
But that isolation only made what happened all the more jarring.
In the early hours of the morning, the earth itself had groaned—and then a massive section of land, including the entire Xavier estate and its surroundings, lifted off into the sky. It vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving behind a monstrous crater in the earth's crust. The event was silent but staggering.
Within minutes, news spread like wildfire across Twist.
Residents jolted awake, thinking a violent earthquake had struck. Dozens of emergency calls flooded in. Lights flicked on across the suburbs. Panic rose. Something had gone terribly wrong—and everyone felt it.
By the time the sky began to lighten, a storm of sirens echoed in the distance. NYPD patrols, local emergency response teams, geological survey units, and even members of the National Guard were en route.
But someone had already arrived.
A black government sedan screeched to a halt near the edge of the massive pit.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Level 8 Agent Phil Coulson stepped out, his expression calm—but his eyes widened the moment he looked ahead.
"…Great flaming crab…"
He froze in place.
The road in front of him had vanished.
So had the trees.
And the hills.
And the lake.
And most notably, Xavier's Manor—which should have been sitting proudly in the heart of the property—was gone. Completely gone.
Phil took a hesitant step forward, peering over the ridge. A 100-meter-deep crater yawned before him, the size of a small city. He swallowed hard.
"Where the hell is the road?" he muttered. "What happened to the ground? The forest? The… the mansion?"
It was supposed to be here.
Xavier's Manor.
The base of the X-Men.
Gone.
Just gone.
Recovering quickly—his training kicking in—Phil pulled out his phone and called his superior.
The line clicked almost immediately.
"Coulson," came the deep, gravelly voice of Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. "I told you to head to Xavier's Manor, find Charles, and figure out what the X-Men are up to. That fast, you've got something?"
"Not exactly, sir," Coulson replied, trying to maintain composure. "I just arrived… and I haven't seen Charles."
There was a pause.
"…Is something wrong?" Fury asked, suspicious but unsurprised.
Coulson took a deep breath. "Yes, Director. Something is very wrong. A big something."
He paused for effect.
"I don't think I'll be meeting Charles anytime soon. Because Xavier's School—well, technically, the entire two-kilometer radius around it—is just… gone."
Silence crackled on the other end of the line.
"…Gone?" Fury repeated slowly. "What do you mean, gone?"
"You heard me, sir," Coulson said, opening his camera app and snapping a few quick photos of the enormous crater. "No Xavier Manor. No roads. No trees. No X-Men. Just a massive pit—like someone carved a scoop of earth out of the ground."
The images were soon sent to Fury's terminal.
Fury's voice didn't return right away. Coulson could almost hear the sound of the Director leaning back in his chair, probably muttering a string of expletives.
When he finally did speak, it wasn't exactly calm.
"Phil Coulson, you have the worst goddamn sense of humor."
"I'm not joking, sir."
"Don't give me that 'scoop of earth' metaphor!"
"I'm serious. If the Earth were a watermelon, someone took a big spoon and just—" he paused, waving his hand at the scene in front of him, "—scooped it right out."
Another long pause.
Then Fury's voice returned—low, sharp, irritated.
"…F**k."
He continued, more to himself than Coulson now. "We just picked this up from our satellites. I'm looking at that crater right now. But no seismic activity was reported? No structural shifts in the crust?"
He growled in frustration.
"How the hell does a chunk of land that size just vanish?!"
"Ten minutes ago, I did feel a tremor," Coulson offered. "Figured it was an earthquake, so I pulled over. That's when I saw… this."
"Ten minutes?" Fury snapped. "You're telling me someone dug a hundred-meter-deep crater the size of a military base in ten fing minutes*?!"
Coulson stayed quiet.
Even he didn't quite believe it.
"Director," he said finally, "this wasn't natural. This was deliberate. There's only one explanation I can come up with—someone lifted the land into the sky."
Fury swore again, much louder this time.
It made no sense.
All of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s satellites, data analytics systems, and surveillance drones had been running non-stop since the X-Men made their dramatic public appearance the night before at Hammer Industries. Not a single one picked up on the manor disappearing.
No energy spikes.
No radiation bursts.
No unusual weather activity.
It was as if… the land just vanished.
"I think," Coulson added quietly, "this power—whatever caused it—is tied to the X-Men. Or more specifically… to Xavier's School."
Fury leaned forward in his chair, fingers steepled, mind racing.
"They show up out of nowhere, save hundreds of people at the expo, then disappear again—only for their entire school to vanish a few hours later?"
He shook his head.
"No way that's a coincidence."
"It's not," Coulson agreed. "And this wasn't an attack. There are no signs of destruction. No burnt edges. No seismic fractures. It's clean. Precise. Like it was removed… on purpose."
Nick Fury's brow furrowed.
He'd read the dossiers. Professor Charles Xavier—mutant telepath of the highest class. Possibly capable of erasing minds, controlling thoughts, even rewriting memory itself.
To some, he was a hero.
To S.H.I.E.L.D., he was a containable threat… until now.
Because this?
This was no longer "containable."
This was escalation.
"Why would he do this?" Fury murmured. "What's the endgame?"
He thought back to Xavier's profile—calm, diplomatic, a pacifist by nature.
Yet here he was, hiding his entire school—his mutant base—from the world in a single, coordinated move.
"Does he think we're a threat now?" Fury asked aloud. "Or is someone else behind this?"
But then he remembered: Joseph.
The name had appeared in several reports over the past few months. A rising mutant with ties to Xavier's School. Capable of advanced magic, technology manipulation, and large-scale illusions.
It had to be him.
That level of precision—the silent mass displacement—it reeked of something far beyond psychic powers. This was magic. Raw and sophisticated.
"Sir…" Coulson's voice cut in again. "What are your orders?"
Nick Fury exhaled, then gave his verdict.
"Double the surveillance on all known mutant activity. I want every public X-Men sighting reported instantly. No exceptions."
"Understood."
"And," Fury added grimly, "tell the weapons division to speed up production on the anti-telepathic helmets."
There was a pause on the line.
Coulson's tone shifted slightly. "Director… are we preparing for war?"
Fury's voice was cold.
"Phil Coulson, we're always preparing for war. But this time? We're preparing for war with the gods."
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