Cyclops had always been a moderate realist—he didn't flinch from hard choices, and when circumstances demanded it he would arm students and send them into the field. That uncompromising streak would one day drive a permanent wedge between him and Wolverine, and between him and Beast, over a fundamental difference in principles.
Now Jean's direction at the school was quietly converging with his outlook. She'd sold his motorcycle and his car, and he couldn't have cared less—he was increasingly convinced she was the partner he'd been looking for all his life.
Professor Xavier found himself in an uncomfortable position. His two most trusted lieutenants—effectively his son and daughter—had simultaneously drifted from his philosophy, and Storm's voice carried less institutional weight than theirs. He had no choice but to summon Wolverine back from the east.
Xavier wouldn't confront Cyclops and Jean directly. That wasn't his way. He would find a gentle method of correction. That was the shape of Xavier's Institute as it stood.
Storm had recounted every change in order: the coffee restrictions, the performance bonus system, reward and penalty structures—and the Grey Directive—No. 1 at first, now up to No. 15, covering an entire wall of the school's main corridor in dense text.
"Wait—what did you actually want to see me about?" Storm finally remembered to ask, only after she'd emptied everything she'd been carrying for weeks.
Daisy gave an awkward laugh. A lot of those measures sounded familiar. Storm, relieved, had a lavish meal on Daisy's dime and went back to school in better spirits.
A lot of those measures sound familiar. Many of them were methods Daisy had taught Hill. The problem was, Hill and Jean had never met—the only person in both their orbits was Daisy herself.
And model the rules was not a phrase that came from anywhere ordinary.
She had CRISIS monitor her sleep for two more nights. The AI confirmed: during deep sleep, her brainwaves were going somewhere untraceable.
Her conclusion: she had developed some kind of bond with Jean—or rather, with the Phoenix. This was serious. It had to be dealt with immediately.
She went to Fury and submitted a leave request.
"What for?" His tone carried the full weight of authority.
She wasn't going to use the birth-parents story again. Her everyday behavior had never once shown any real concern for her birth parents—using that excuse again would be insulting to both their intelligences. She gave him a partial truth instead: "During the fight with Doom, someone showed me something. I need to go east and find a way to push past my current ceiling."
Fury studied her for a long moment. Weighing it. Then he exhaled. "How long?"
She didn't know. Whether K'un-Lun would take her in, whether they would teach her their secret techniques, whether the Ancient One's name carried any practical weight without a token or letter of introduction, what K'un-Lun could even verify about her—all unknown. Her transposition ability could theoretically get her in and out; the ten-year cycle that governed the city's appearance didn't seem to apply to her the same way. Time, at least, wasn't the constraint.
"Three months. Roughly."
Fury nodded. He thought for a moment. Then he reached into his coat and produced a pager—old-fashioned, clunky-looking, practically from another era.
Daisy took it with a baffled expression. She turned it over. No seams. No visible assembly joints. The casing was a single continuous piece.
Fury seemed to anticipate the question. He explained it simply: "Take it with you. Even if you go off-world, it'll pick up signals from Earth. S.H.I.E.L.D. needs you."
Then Fury left cleanly, without lingering.
Daisy studied the pager. The exterior was what it appeared to be. Everything else about it was not from Earth. The frequency it operated on was alien to anything in terrestrial engineering, and through her frequency perception, the physical object resonated with the distinct signature of concentrated psychic energy—as if it had been manifested from psychic energy rather than manufactured.
Constructed through willpower.
She gave up trying to understand it and put it in her bag.
Half a month of preparation: sorting responsibilities, running briefings, mapping out contingencies. With Baldy at S.H.I.E.L.D. and Viper anchoring HYDRA, both organizations could operate without her. She also made arrangements for the villa and Hammer Industries.
She suggested to Maki that it might be time to quietly remove the Elektra complication. The maid declined—one of the few times Daisy could remember her doing so.
I have everything in hand.
Daisy recalled what both women had been capable of in the original timeline, then considered Maki's current resources: S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA, Hammer Industries. Maki had the weight of a small empire behind her against one lone, outnumbered operative. If she wanted to play, she could play.
On a Sunday morning, Daisy shouldered her pack, picked up her gear, and set out alone.
Afghanistan first. She traced the Mandarin's escape route from memory—a few more rings, if they were recoverable, seemed like a reasonable prize. Fortune doesn't favor the hesitant.
The site was too clean. Cleaned deliberately. Despite cross-referencing the route several times before leaving, she found nothing but snow and mountains. The Mandarin was buried somewhere very deep.
She changed course for Nepal. Wong had given her the address of Kamar-Taj; Daisy wanted the Ancient One's perspective on her use of the lasso. The Ancient One was away—touring the multiverse, by Wong's account.
"I genuinely don't know where the Master is. I'm sorry—her knowledge is beyond my comprehension." Wong was gracious. The incident where she'd deposited several of his colleagues into the Mirror Dimension went unmentioned.
"Incredible." Daisy meant every word. She struggled to reach a single alien planet; the Ancient One apparently toured the multiverse recreationally and had grown somewhat jaded about it. The distance between them was not small.
She helped Kamar-Taj's younger students set up an internet connection—a small thing, just enough for them to feel the modern world outside their walls—and walked up into the mountains, seen off by a small crowd of appreciative novices.
This was her first attempt at a cross-dimensional transposition. Her approach was to locate the intersection point where K'un-Lun's dimensional layer and the material plane overlapped; at a convergence point, the transposition margin of error would be significantly smaller.
One day into the mountain range, she found the trap five meters ahead of her. She sighed. Really.
A nudge of one boot sent a pebble into the trip wire. Three spears—visibly coated with poison—snapped out from the opposite side, crossed several hundred meters of air, and vanished into the tree line. However potent the poison was, the spears hit nothing.
The attackers revealed themselves. Over a dozen Hand ninja emerged from the tree cover and the undergrowth, forming a circle.
Her old friends. Her old opponents.