Chapter 386: [490] - A New Mastermind Emerges

The correct chapters!

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The good news was that for the next fifteen days, the Demon King's power would stay unstable and unable to fully appear.

The bad news was that after those fifteen days, his true power would arrive in this world for good.

Both pieces of news made their way from New York City to Washington, D.C., reaching the Pentagon and the White House before Professor X's private jet even left the ground.

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Ten minutes later, deep in a secure bunker under the White House, President Turner looked at the grid of military officials on the monitor in front of him. He set the newly printed memo on his desk, his face serious.

"GENTLEMEN, WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!"

Over the past two years, information from different sources had confirmed a frightening truth. When Hawk destroyed the Quantico facility, cut the Pentagon in half, and left meteorite craters on the White House grounds, he hadn't even used his full strength.

How had they learned that?

Charles Xavier.

Once again, it all came back to Xavier's strong belief in peace. He truly thought humans and mutants could find lasting peace through talks, not fighting. To push the Mutant Peace Accord forward, he let the X-Men act as an unofficial federal strike team for the past two years, handling disasters the regular military couldn't manage.

For Xavier, every successful mission was a step toward building trust.

But what he didn't see was that President Turner and the rest of the government saw the X-Men as disposable contractors.

When a mission went well, the government took the credit. When one failed, the mutants got the blame. The X-Men could save the country over and over, but if just one mission went wrong, Turner's team would quickly change their stance. They would use the failure to stir up anti-mutant feelings and blame mutants for any crisis they could.

That was Turner's plan from the start!

But the X-Men had done everything perfectly.

They had finished more than a dozen big missions without giving Turner any real reason to turn on them. Their ongoing success also meant he had no good excuse to keep putting off the Mutant Peace Accord Xavier wanted.

Even worse, the government still needed Xavier as a backup. If the Demon Hunter Project failed, they would need him to step in and talk to the Demon King, just like before.

The Demon Hunter Project had a clear goal—to kill the Demon King.

In the original timeline, the Sentinels were made to wipe out mutants. In this new reality, the whole Sentinel Program had been changed for just one purpose.

To kill Hawk.

Now, that plan was coming undone.

The Demon King might be weak for the next fifteen days, but the Sentinels weren't ready.

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"What's the current status of the Sentinel Program?" Turner tapped his knuckles on the desk, frowning.

"We're finishing the adjustments to the mimicry genes right now, Mr. President." The general in charge of the project answered right away.

Turner's face stayed cold.

"I need a clear timeline. Charles Xavier is already on his way to Washington for a congressional hearing."

"Ten days." The general paused, his voice showing some strain.

"Mr. President, I promise the Sentinels will be fully ready in ten days."

Turner looked at him for a few seconds, then let out a quiet, humorless laugh. "Then maybe you can tell me how I'm supposed to stall Charles Xavier for ten days."

"More importantly, the Demon King's daughter will be at this hearing. Our plan was to bring the Sentinels online and use her as leverage. Now you're telling me we have nothing ready. What are we supposed to do?"

"If the Demon King is really weak for the next fifteen days, why not send in the military and take him down now?" The general replied without thinking it through.

Turner laughed openly, as if the general had just suggested the smartest plan ever.

"Excellent. Since it's your idea, General, you can lead the operation yourself. Of course, the White House will know nothing about the attack."

A senior Pentagon general, who had been silent until now, spoke without changing his expression. "The Pentagon hasn't approved any operation like that."

The project director's smile froze in place.

Was this a joke?

Did they really expect him to attack a monster who had destroyed a whole military base with his bare hands?

He might not have been a genius strategist, but he wasn't foolish enough to mistake suicide for bravery. If the attack failed, Hawk wouldn't stop with him. His wife, his children, and everyone close to him could be at risk.

That fear was exactly why Bolivar Trask was given full control over the Sentinel Program two years ago. Officially, neither the White House nor the Pentagon knew about the project. Trask had been chosen as the scapegoat from the start.

If the plan worked, the administration would take the credit.

If it failed and the Demon King wanted revenge, they would blame Trask and ask Xavier to help fix things.

Once a pawn was no longer useful, it didn't get any protection.

The general had no plans to become another throwaway piece.

Meeting Turner's sharp stare on the monitor, he forced an awkward smile and quickly shifted the blame. "This is all Bolivar Trask's fault. He didn't finish the project on time."

Turner chuckled as the man tried to find a way out. He had never bothered to learn the general's name. To Turner, the man only had his job because of politics, not skill. Turner thought that less than a hundred years ago, someone like him wouldn't have been allowed near the center of power.

Turner saw no reason to remember the names of people he considered replaceable.

"Gentlemen, we need a new plan." He turned back to the others.

"Agreed," one of the Pentagon generals said, his voice calm. "We need a new approach. We also have to consider if the Demon King's fifteen days of weakness are real or just a trap."

It was a fair concern. The men at the meeting were at the top of the federal command. For all their flaws, they still had some tactical sense.

Turner understood their caution, but the Demon King's weakness wasn't his biggest problem. The real crisis was already on a plane heading to Washington.

"Our biggest problem is the proposal... We can't let the Mutant Peace Accord pass Congress." Turner said.

There was a ruling party and an opposition party, both at the hearing. If the ruling party supported something, the opposition fought it. If the ruling party rejected something, the opposition found reasons to defend it.

Normally, that alone would have made sure the bill failed. The opposition was openly and strongly against mutants.

Turner's own party also used anti-mutant feelings to get votes, but kept its public stance unclear on purpose. They won by appealing to moderates and people who felt some sympathy for mutants, claiming they could tell the difference between "good" and "dangerous" mutants.

The opposition didn't care about those differences. Its leaders openly called for locking up or deporting every mutant in the country.

That's why Xavier supported Turner's group instead of trying to work with their rivals.

Even so, the Mutant Peace Accord should have failed right away. Xavier and his team could have landed that afternoon, watched Congress reject the proposal before sunset, and gone back to New York that night.

The problem was Turner's own promise.

Xavier had helped Turner's team quietly handle a mutant crisis that could have ruined him. In return, Turner had promised to support the peace agreement.

At the time, the promise seemed harmless. Turner planned to keep using the X-Men until they slipped up, then use that mistake to cancel the agreement and turn people against mutants.

He never thought they would succeed every time.

Now the whole plan was falling apart.

"We can't let the hearing happen," one of the generals said. "We have to delay it."

"I know," Turner said, pressing his fingers to his temple. "The question is how. Gentlemen, we're out of time."

No one spoke for several seconds.

Then someone finally spoke up.

"I have an idea."