At dawn, the sun rose as usual—but for the people of this country, the past few days had felt like a never-ending nightmare.
"Stop the vehicle. Routine check!"
Just off the freeway, Dean and Sam were once again stopped by a squad of armed soldiers. This was the fourth time on their route they'd been pulled over, and by now, the two brothers had gone from tense to resigned.
The lead soldier pulled out a handheld scanner—some kind of metal detector, though both brothers knew exactly what it was. He looked them over carefully, then pointed the device at them.
Dean and Sam understood. This wasn't just any scanner. It was a mutant gene detector—the kind being broadcast across TV networks lately. It could identify anyone carrying an active or dormant X-gene, no matter how deeply buried it was in their DNA.
After the recent chaos in Manhattan—the wild skirmish between the Sentinels and an unknown mutant—the military had ramped up its investigations. All major highways were locked down. Everyone was a suspect. Everyone got scanned.
And now, Dean and Sam finally understood why Alex had chosen them—two ordinary humans—to enter this version of the Marvel Universe. It wasn't just to avoid the gaze of the Dark Watchers. It was to stay off this world's radar too.
In truth, the brothers weren't exactly "ordinary." Sam had been fed demon blood as a child, and Dean had once wielded the First Blade, briefly inheriting the curse of Cain. But fortunately, this detector only scanned for mutant genes—not demonic or angelic powers—so it didn't react to them.
Beep-beep! ...BEEP.
A moment passed. Then the light blinked green.
The soldier's expression eased slightly. He stepped forward and held out his hand. "Identification."
"Sure." Sam handed over a pair of documents—fakes, but professional-grade fakes. "We work for an insurance firm. Just doing our rounds, you know how it is."
"That's not for you to decide. Shut your mouth and stay put," the soldier snapped, glaring at Sam.
He took the IDs and looked them over carefully.
Everything looked perfect. The documentation was pristine—photos, biometric data, background checks—all tailored for exactly this kind of checkpoint. After a tense pause, the soldier looked back and forth between them… then gave a slow nod and handed the papers back.
"You're clear. Move along."
"Thanks." Sam forced a smile, ignoring the man's hostility.
Back in the car, Dean rolled his eyes. "Power-tripping punks. The city's practically burning, and they're still out here hunting mutants."
"They're just following orders," Sam said calmly. "You can't judge this world by our standards. Not all mutants from other realities are heroes. Didn't Alex say that most of them are unstable, borderline maniacs?"
"Unstable maniacs?" Dean scoffed. "Please. I haven't seen a single one."
BOOM!
Before Dean could finish, a nearby car exploded in a blast of flame and metal. The shockwave flipped multiple vehicles nearby. People were tossed like ragdolls—lifeless, shredded by the blast.
Dean and Sam instinctively ducked, their expressions shifting from annoyance to alarm.
As the explosion faded, Dean spun in his seat and looked toward the blast zone. Through the thick black smoke and flickering fire, he saw silhouettes moving—running.
"What the hell...?" Dean squinted, trying to make them out.
Around them, soldiers shouted and rushed toward the explosion, guns raised. They opened fire, unloading round after round at the shapes in the flames.
But their bullets did nothing.
Suddenly, a massive serpent of fire erupted into the sky with a roar—then lunged toward the soldiers like a dragon unchained.
Some of the soldiers, unable to escape in time, were consumed by the fire dragon. Amidst agonized screams and howls, their bodies charred into blackened husks. Even the weapons in their hands glowed red from the heat.
"Mutants! It's those mutants!!"
With that panicked scream, the entire scene descended into chaos.
Everywhere they looked, people were running and screaming. Some tried to start their cars and flee, but this was a security checkpoint—vehicles were lined up bumper to bumper. No one could move forward or back.
Cars collided in a chain reaction. Flames spread from one to the next, and some of the more tightly packed ones exploded in a deadly chain of secondary blasts.
"Damn it! The door's jammed, I can't open it!"
Dean tried to push the car door open but found the neighboring vehicle pressed up too close. There wasn't enough space to squeeze through.
"This way!"
Sam shoved open the passenger door, jumped out with a handgun drawn, and moved quickly behind nearby cars for cover, heading toward the heart of the chaos.
Dean popped the false floor of the trunk and pulled out a shotgun before following right behind him.
"I've gotta be honest," Dean muttered, crouching behind a car and glancing toward the fire, "We've faced vampires, demons, even angels... but this is our first time dealing with mutants."
Within the swirling inferno, a man with golden hair stood tall—unleashing wave after wave of searing heat, forcing the soldiers to fall back.
"If I'm not mistaken," Sam narrowed his eyes, "that guy… that has to be Pyro."
"Pyro... he's one of the X-Men?" Dean frowned as he asked.
"Not exactly," Sam shook his head. "Technically, he's more aligned with Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants. But Alex warned us not to treat these variants like their usual counterparts. Judging by how he's going full scorched earth right now, I'd say he's not exactly a hero."
Just as the brothers were speaking, a flaming humanoid figure came crashing down from the sky, arcing through the air before slamming onto the hood of the car in front of Dean with a sickening thud.
The body was charred nearly beyond recognition, but the burnt remnants of the man's face looked familiar—most likely the same soldier who had checked their IDs not ten minutes ago.
Startled, Dean turned and exchanged a look with Sam. His expression said it all: whatever side Pyro was on didn't matter anymore. If they let him keep going, they could be next.
Sam nodded grimly in return, signaled silently, and broke off in the opposite direction.
"Come on! Didn't you all wanna die?!"
In the heart of the battlefield, Pyro—John Allerdyce—stood with flames coiling around his body. The air shimmered around him from the searing heat, distorting the space itself. The soldiers couldn't even get close; all they could do was fire from a distance, hoping to overwhelm him with sheer firepower. But they clearly underestimated him.
John had pushed his mutant ability to the brink. With a single snap of his fingers, the soldiers' weapons backfired catastrophically, exploding in their hands—shredding limbs and sending men screaming to the ground.
Seeing this, Sam skidded to a halt, raising both hands in a non-threatening gesture.
"Hey, man—let's just cool down, alright?"
Pyro turned toward the tall man in a suit who dared approach. There was something curious in his eyes as he spoke, voice crackling with flame.
"You're different from those others. I can feel it—there's something else inside you."
"Is that so?" Sam blinked, momentarily thrown. His demon blood should've been gone—purged long ago. So how could this mutant sense something still lingering?
And more importantly… how?
Just as Sam was trying to make sense of it all, Pyro kept talking.
"You're not from this world either, are you? I can sense thermal ion reactions in everyone... and you're nothing like the rest of them. But somehow, you're just a regular human? Interesting."
Hearing that, Sam immediately realized the mutant had misunderstood—but he adapted quickly and leaned into it.
"I'm like you," he said, keeping his voice calm. "I'm a mutant too... just that the X-gene in my body—it's been suppressed. You get what I mean?"
"Suppressed?" Pyro's eyes narrowed. For a moment, something dark crossed his face, like he'd remembered something painful. His expression grew sour.
Seeing the mutant was willing to talk, Sam subtly waved at Dean, signaling him to stay put. Then, pressing his luck, he continued, "Brother... I don't know how I got here. What's going on? Why are we in this place?"
"You don't know?" Pyro's eyes glinted. "That man... he didn't tell you?"
"That man?" Sam's heart skipped. He suddenly realized he was close—really close—to the truth. Pyro had seen whoever was pulling the strings behind all of this. But just as Sam opened his mouth to ask more—
Pyro's body jerked violently as a surge of power slammed into him. A blue arc of electricity lit up the air, and Pyro was hurled backward like a ragdoll, crashing into the burning wreckage of a car behind him.
Tendrils of lightning crackled across his body. He spasmed once, then collapsed, unconscious.
Sam froze.
For a few seconds, he just stared blankly at the downed mutant before slowly turning his head toward the source.
"Nice work, big guy."
Striding casually toward him was a man with a cybernetic arm, hefting a high-voltage rifle over his shoulder. He adjusted his sunglasses and gave Sam a smirk and a lazy salute.
"From here on out, this zone falls under the control of the Reavers."
...
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