Scott Summers walked away from the mutant base like a man who had seen the end of the world and survived, though he wasn't sure why he had bothered. His spirit was a hollowed-out shell. The memory of the "Dark Phoenix"—the entity that looked like his wife but felt like a cold, starving star—kept replaying in his mind.
In the original timeline of a world he didn't know, Scott would have been the tragic hero, destined to be killed by the very woman he loved after her resurrection. Here, he was just a man who had been cast aside. If Bruce Banner was famous for his green skin, Scott was currently the same color—not out of gamma radiation, but out of the sheer, sickly irony of his situation. He had been "cuckolded" by destiny itself.
As he wandered, a familiar, gentle resonance brushed against his mind. It was a voice he had trusted his entire life, yet now it felt strangely invasive.
"Scott, my son... please, come home. We have to regroup. We have to find a way to stop this before it's too late."
Charles Xavier's voice was like a velvet blanket, but Scott found himself wanting to shake it off. He stopped in his tracks, looking at the grey horizon of Pennsylvania. "Stop her? Why, Professor? Why is the first instinct always to 'stop' things?"
"She is a danger to herself and the world, Scott. The authorities are terrified. Every second she remains on that throne, the thread of peace we've spent decades weaving is being pulled apart."
Scott let out a dry, hacking laugh. "Peace? Professor, look at what she's doing. She's carving out a home. For the first time, mutants aren't hiding in a school in Westchester; they're standing on their own land. If she has the power to make the government blink, maybe that's the only 'legitimacy' we ever needed. Maybe a mutant autonomous zone is the only way our people ever get to breathe."
In Scott's mind, a plan began to form, born of desperation. If Jean succeeded, mutants could use this territory as a political springboard. They could change the narrative from "freaks in hiding" to "citizens of a sovereign nation." It was a bold, dangerous dream, but it was better than the slow crawl toward extinction they had been practicing at the mansion.
"Scott, you're thinking like Magneto," Charles sighed, his mental voice heavy with a profound, almost paternal disappointment. "Do you think the humans will just sit by? If we don't show them that we are on the side of order—if we don't prove we can police our own—they will implement the 'Sentinel' programs and the 'Cure' initiatives with a vengeance. We must prove we are the solution, even if it means sacrifice. I have already contacted the President. I've volunteered the X-Men to assist in neutralizing the threat."
"You... you volunteered us?" Scott whispered, his grip tightening on his visor. "To fight Jean? To prove to the people who hate us that we're 'good boys'?"
"We must believe in the better nature of humanity, Scott. It is the only way."
If Huang Wen had been awake to hear this, he would have likely suffered a brain aneurysm from the sheer, unadulterated "Saint-like" idiocy of it. Charles Xavier was a man who wore a mutant's face but possessed a heart that beat for a status quo that would never truly accept him. To Charles, the approval of the oppressor was the only metric of success.
With a heavy heart and a sense of impending doom, Scott turned back toward Westchester. He knew that by returning, he was choosing a side. He was choosing to be Jean's enemy. The tragedy wasn't that he was losing his wife; it was that he was being forced to help kill the only hope his race had ever had, all for the sake of a "peace" that felt more like a cage every day.
Meanwhile, at the Wing Chun Martial Arts Academy, Bruce Banner was dealing with his own set of "family" pressures. His phone had been vibrating off the hook with calls from General Ross.
"Bruce, you've seen the news," Ross's voice had been uncharacteristically frantic over the line. "The girl is a walking extinction event. We need the Big Guy. We need a deterrent that doesn't involve a tactical nuke."
Bruce sat in the quiet of his room, looking at the calligraphy on the walls. He didn't want to go. The Academy was the first place where he felt like a person rather than a weapon. Here, people like Ying Faming, John, and even the mutants who drifted in and out were treated as equals. It was a sanctuary of coexistence.
Why would he leave this to go fight a woman who could turn him into a pile of salt with a thought? He had seen that canyon. He knew that even if the Hulk came out, he'd just be a larger target for Jean's molecular deconstruction.
He walked up to the fourth floor, seeking a distraction. He found Logan leaning against a railing, staring out at the New York skyline.
"Old Wolf," Bruce said, leaning beside him. "Your 'friends' are causing quite a stir. Ross wants me to go in. You're not tempted to help? I've heard whispers that you and Jean... well, that things were 'unusual' between you two."
Logan let out a series of awkward coughs, his eyes darting toward Yuriko, who was practicing her forms at the other end of the hall. She didn't look over, but the way her claws hummed suggested she was listening.
"Keep your voice down, kid," Logan muttered, his cigar smoldering. "The boss went through hell to bring me back from that mess. If I go back now, I'm just walking back into the trap. Besides, I'm not lifting a finger until Huang Wen gets back. This isn't a weekend scuffle; this is a god-tier disaster. I'm staying put... wait."
Logan's ears twitched. His animal instincts, honed by a century of combat, picked up a vibration that didn't belong. The Academy's new renovations had made the soundproofing top-tier, but he could still feel the rhythmic thud of a struggle coming from the first floor.
"Someone's crashing the party," Logan growled, his claws sliding out with a metallic shink.
Downstairs, the atmosphere was far from the usual Zen-like calm of the martial arts school. Emil Blonsky had arrived, and he wasn't there for a trial lesson.
Blonsky had expected to walk in, grab Banner, and leave. But John, Jack, and the others were out for a late lunch, leaving only the junior students and the senior instructors. When Blonsky tried to force his way into the private quarters, he was met by a man who looked like he belonged in a retirement home, not a fight.
Ying Faming, the master of Tai Chi, stood in his path.
"This is a place of learning, not a battlefield," Ying Faming said calmly, his hands tucked into his sleeves.
"Move, old man. I'm on official business for the United States government," Blonsky sneered. He didn't see a threat; he saw a speed bump. He launched an arrogant, high-velocity aerial kick, aiming to end the confrontation instantly.
But Blonsky hadn't accounted for the "momentum" of Wing Chun and Tai Chi.
Ying Faming didn't block. He flowed. With a subtle shift of his weight and a gentle guiding of Blonsky's own force, he sent the super-soldier crashing into the floorboards. The "thud" was loud enough to rattle the tea sets.
Blonsky scrambled up, his face flushing with rage. The incomplete serum was screaming in his blood, heightening his aggression. He was a veteran, a man of a thousand kills, and he realized he couldn't play with this old man. He began to use his military CQC, combining it with the raw, transcendent strength the serum provided.
He found the flaw quickly: Ying Faming was a master of technique, but his physical strength was that of an ordinary man. Blonsky began to overwhelm him through sheer attrition, his strikes becoming faster and heavier.
"Is this all your 'master' taught you?" Blonsky laughed, throwing a heavy hook that forced Ying Faming back.
"Who the hell is making all this noise?"
The front doors swung open. Fisk, John, and Zhong Qiang—who was still looking a bit morose from his recent heartbreak—walked in. Their eyes immediately landed on the trashed lobby and the injured students.
Fisk didn't ask questions. He didn't need to. He saw an intruder attacking an instructor in Huang Wen's house. That was a death sentence.
The massive man charged like a runaway freight train. Blonsky, feeling invincible, tried to catch Fisk's charge. In a world with Captain America, Fisk might have been the underdog. But Blonsky's serum was a knock-off, a "Great Value" version of the real thing.
When Fisk's fist collided with Blonsky's guard, the super-soldier felt his arm go numb.
"You're strong," Blonsky hissed, gritting his teeth. "But you're just a fat man in a suit."
"And you're a dead man in a hallway," John added, stepping in with a flurry of Wing Chun chain punches.
The tide turned instantly. With Ying Faming's redirective genius, Fisk's crushing power, and John's lightning-fast strikes, Blonsky was being dismantled. He took a heavy blow to the ribs from Fisk and a palm strike to the throat from Ying Faming.