Wilhelm Stryker had been right about one thing—
The world was watching.
Thanks to the live connection through the Global Daily, every second of the staged execution, every whispered conspiracy, every damning confession had gone out unfiltered to millions of viewers. And those viewers?
They were furious.
At first, most people had tuned in out of curiosity. The X-Men making a public vow to capture the president's would-be assassin had caught media attention, sure—but it was just another mutant controversy in a long line of many. Most assumed it would end in another PR tug-of-war between pro-human and pro-mutant factions.
But then the feed from the church started rolling.
And everything changed.
"What's going on? The camera's destroyed—how is the live feed still up?"
"Wait… the military ambushed the X-Men?!"
"This has to be deeper than it looks..."
At first, the crowd was murmuring. Curious. Skeptical. Even entertained. Then came the video footage of Colonel Wilhelm Stryker himself—calmly, even proudly, revealing his plan to capture Professor X, seize the brainwave amplification device, and use it to wipe out all Mutants on Earth.
The collective gasp of disbelief across every screen was deafening.
"Exterminate every single Mutant?"
"That's not military defense—that's genocide!"
People exchanged horrified glances in living rooms, cafes, subways, schools.
Even without understanding the full mechanics of the brainwave device, the sheer magnitude of such a plan chilled people to the bone.
And then came the final dagger.
Stryker admitted, in his own voice, that he had orchestrated the assassination attempt on the President by controlling Nightcrawler using a mind-altering serum made from his own son's brain fluid.
That revelation hit like a nuclear bomb.
"What?! The person who tried to assassinate the President was from the military?!"
"He's the same guy from that documentary—the one who experimented on Wolverine!"
"You mean... he framed a Mutant to turn public opinion against them?"
"This isn't defense. This is manipulated terror."
The floodgates broke. Internet forums, news commentaries, and social media platforms erupted. Hashtags like #MutantLivesMatter, #StrykerExposed, and #WeaponXScandal began trending across all networks.
The public had gone from mildly intrigued...
...to horrified...
...to furiously betrayed.
In real time, viewers saw Captain Adam Robert—Stryker's most loyal subordinate—executing sedated prisoners, including NYPD detectives and a Global Daily reporter, all under direct orders.
That was the tipping point.
The switch flipped from scandal to outrage.
"This man isn't just a warmonger… he's a butcher!"
"He murdered officers of the law! He silenced the media!"
"And what's worse—he used his own son in experiments?!"
A frigid wave of revulsion swept through the masses.
That was no longer politics. No longer military protocol.
That was evil.
"This guy is a psychopath."
"Who put him in charge of the Weapon X program?"
"If he can do this to mutants… what's to stop him from turning his guns on us next?"
"The military is supposed to protect the people… not run experiments on them!"
Every revelation further blackened Stryker's name.
What had once been brushed off as conspiracy theories or fringe claims about the Weapon X project had now been exposed, undeniable, undeniable and indisputable.
People felt fooled. Manipulated. Lied to.
Stryker had painted the Mutants as the enemy. And the world had believed him.
But now, they saw the real monster.
Of course, not everyone immediately believed everything. A few still questioned the broadcast.
"Wait a second. Why would Stryker still talk openly with his men if the broadcast was live? Doesn't he have media alerts?"
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Shouldn't he have seen the X-Men's announcement?"
"He was being manipulated. Someone clearly hacked the broadcast or used illusions!"
"Or maybe he's just that arrogant. You saw how he talked. Guy's a megalomaniac."
"Either way… he confessed. All of it. Doesn't matter if he knew he was being recorded. What matters is he meant every word."
And so, the uncertainty—those brief slivers of doubt—were overwhelmed by a tsunami of righteous fury.
Back at the church, the illusion finally dropped.
Iron Man descended through the ceiling, his repulsors glowing in the dusty light. The collapsed roof became a divine stage for truth as Joseph's illusion dissolved, and the X-Men were revealed to be unharmed, upright, and completely in control.
Adam Robert and his troops were left dumbfounded—caught in the act like schoolchildren with their hands in the cookie jar.
The world saw their expressions. The panic. The terror.
They knew.
This wasn't just performance anymore.
This was justice.
From that moment, everything accelerated.
Public opinion, which had already reached a boiling point, now erupted into volcanic demand:
"Arrest those soldiers!"
"Find Stryker!"
"Bring him to trial for war crimes!"
Even the normally conservative outlets were calling for military investigation panels.
In homes, bars, and newsrooms, voices rose in unison:
"The butcher must go to hell!"
What Joseph, the X-Men, and their allies had orchestrated was more than just a trap.
It was a global reckoning.
By exposing Wilhelm Stryker's inhumanity—not through force, but through truth—they had turned the tables on decades of oppression. They had redefined the mutant narrative not with explosions or destruction, but with evidence. With compassion. With strategic brilliance.
And Iron Man's arrival? That was the final validation.
A figure trusted by the public, respected by both humans and Mutants alike. His presence sealed the credibility of everything that had just unfolded.
He was the impartial witness.
The judge who had seen through the curtain of lies.
The feed continued rolling.
The audience watched in silence as soldiers dropped their weapons, one by one.
The illusion was gone.
The reality was unmistakable.
The murderers had become the prisoners.
And the victims were now standing in the light.
At the same time, far away in the hidden Weapon X base, Wilhelm Stryker was facing the coldest nightmare of his life.
Trapped inside his own fortress.
His communications jammed.
The AI system—hijacked.
Joseph's artificial intelligence—Alice—now controlled everything.
She had locked every gate, every door, and every escape route.
And as her playful voice echoed through the speaker system—"My master is on his way~"—Wilhelm Stryker realized:
He wasn't getting out.
He was going to face judgment.
Not from some biased courtroom…
But from the very people he had hunted.
And the world would be watching that too.