They left through the back of the house, moving with the confidence of people who had done this before. Ethan stood at the center, his biokinetic aura spreading to include everyone before anyone realized they were lifting off. The house dropped away beneath them. Westchester became a pattern, the eastern seaboard its coastline, and then the Atlantic stretched out below as their speed increased.
The flight took minutes.
Endless white below signaled the cold of Antarctica. The intensity of the white made everything else seem fleeting. Yet, as they went further south, the white vanished—replaced by the unexpected.
Madelyne made a sound.
It wasn't a word; it was an involuntary sound—the kind someone makes when astonished, before their mind catches up to their senses. Below, carved into the Antarctic ice, an expanse of surreal green radiated outward. Even from above, waves of heat shimmered over the dense jungle canopy—lush and out of place, yet undeniable.
Rogue stayed quiet, the way she did when something moved her so much that words didn't seem right.
Jean looked down, focusing as she did when she wanted to take in everything, not just part of it.
Raven glanced from the green against the white to Ethan, her expression holding something she didn't need to explain.
Ilyana studied the Savage Land with the careful attention she used in new places, already thinking about defenses and everything else.
Ethan landed them at the jungle's edge. The Antarctic chill gave way within meters to thick, Savage Land warmth—a sudden, potent change, fragrant with primordial scents.
The sound reached them before anything else.
---
Walking into the Savage Land properly was a different experience from looking at it from above.
This canopy redefined the word itself. Here, the forest had grown unchanged for two hundred thousand years—a far cry from any modern woods. Its dense layers cast heavy shadows and filtered the light to a greenish hue. Anyone accustomed to the northeast would instantly notice the real heat and thick humidity.
Something much bigger moved through the undergrowth to their left. The ground showed a series of slight compressions—obvious if you knew what to watch for.
Rogue rested her hand on a tree trunk, reaching for it without thinking, like people do when they need something solid in a strange place. She looked up at the canopy with the look of someone seeing her science fiction dreams come true, but in a way that was both more and less than she imagined.
The Brachiosaurus emerged from a gap in the trees to the right. Its neck appeared first, very long, and the head turned away from them. The body followed, moving with slow, calm grace. It was about thirty meters long. The nearby trees looked small next to it.
Rogue said a word she did not usually say in mixed company.
Jean became very still, the kind of stillness that happens when someone's mind is working hard to make sense of something new. Her awareness stretched out on its own, picking up details at a biological level she had never experienced before.
Ilyana watched with the look she gave things she found important but not threatening. Limbo had creatures bigger and more dangerous than a Brachiosaurus. She had ruled Limbo. Still, standing next to something this size was impressive.
Madelyne looked at it for a long time without speaking.
Raven watched all of them watching the Brachiosaurus, and the expression on her face was the warmest it had been all morning.
"The machines that keep this place going," Ethan said, after everyone had a moment to take in the animal, "are the reason all of this is still here. My father told me about them—alien technology that's been running for about two hundred thousand years, creating the microclimate that keeps the Antarctic ice from wiping everything out." He glanced at the Brachiosaurus, which kept eating, ignoring them. "Without those machines, this would disappear in weeks."
Raven looked at him. "That means it's always at risk from anyone who wants to destroy the machines."
"Unfortunately, always," he said.
She looked around at the jungle, taking in what two hundred thousand years of untouched growth looked like from the inside. The look on her face was the one she wore just before making a decision she already knew she would follow.
---
They heard it before they found it.
They heard a sound none of them could quite place. It was clearly an animal in distress, but the pitch and tone didn't match anything they knew. It sounded too small for what it should have made, and too tired to be loud.
Ethan tracked the sound with his hearing, just as he would follow a heartbeat. The direction was clear, and as they moved, the distance became obvious, and the sound made more sense. It was something young, trapped, and it had been stuck long enough that its cries had the hopeless tone of someone who no longer expected help.
The young T. rex was about a meter and a half long, with the awkward proportions of a young animal—its head too big, legs not yet grown, and arms useless for its current problem. It was pinned under a heavy fallen tree. It wasn't hurt in any serious way, but it was exhausted from being stuck so long, and its mother was nowhere to be seen. Its cries sounded like it had given up hope of being rescued.
Ethan lifted the tree section and set it aside.
The juvenile lurched upright, scrambling with awkward urgency—an animal desperate to stand after too long prone. It pivoted, searching.
It found Ethan.
It tried to defend itself—head down, body leaning forward, like it wanted to look bigger. This would have worked better if it weren't about the size of a large dog. It was completely committed to the pose, but it wasn't very convincing.
It tried a sound. The sound was meant to be threatening and landed somewhere between uncertain and plaintive.
Rogue put her hand over her mouth.
Jean made a sound that was not quite a laugh, entirely involuntary.
Ilyana watched the young T. rex, her face shifting from careful assessment to pure delight—a rare look for her, but this moment had earned it.
Raven crouched.
She crouched down to the animal's level, moving slowly and calmly, as she did when she wanted to give the other side time to adjust. The young T. rex watched her closely, taking in every detail. It dropped its defensive pose and stepped back.
Raven waited.
The jungle continued around them—the sounds, the heat, and the sense of ancient life pressing in from all sides. The young T. rex looked at Raven, then at the others, then back at Raven.
It took two steps toward her.
The sniff it gave her hand was intent—absorbed in gathering essential information, as if this assessment would decide everything. It held the pose, deliberate and unwavering.
Rogue stood very still. For her, who rarely reacted this way, it meant she was deeply moved but chose not to show it openly.
Jean watched Raven's face more than the animal. Her expression was warm, like someone seeing a loved one find something they didn't know they needed.
The juvenile T. rex swung its head toward Madelyne.
Madelyne had been standing a bit apart from the group—not quite part of it, not quite separate, as usual. She visibly prepared herself as the animal approached. When it reached her, she went very still. The T. rex sniffed her hands, her coat, and everything else she offered.
Then it sneezed.
Madelyne laughed.
Madelyne's laughter was unpolished and genuine—sudden, bright, transforming her face. It was nothing like the measured, polite laughs from before. The others noticed, but spared her any embarrassment.
The juvenile T. rex, apparently satisfied with its assessment, moved back toward Raven.
---
The juvenile T. rex did not leave.
Over the next twenty minutes, as the group moved deeper into the Savage Land, it became clear—the young T. rex simply walked with them, staying close to Raven and sometimes checking out the others with the curiosity of an animal still learning about the world.
Dinosaurs appeared as they walked, at varying distances. The path was never suddenly blocked; instead, life filled the landscape like a forest teeming with birds and small animals—only here, everything was on a different scale. A pair of Triceratops crossed a clearing to the east. From the north, a low call—likely Stegosaurs—rumbled, too deep to hear clearly. Pterodactyl-like silhouettes glided between canopy gaps overhead, moving as if all this was completely normal.
As they walked, Ethan shared what he knew from his father about the Vibranium deposits under their feet. Certain orange-red rocks showed where it was. The Anti-Metal type, he explained, was different from the Wakandan kind. Instead of absorbing energy, it dissolved other metals on contact. Some parts of the jungle hid deposits of incredible value.
Raven picked up a small stone from the path and looked at it. "How does that not create constant conflict over this place?"
"It does," he said. "It always has. The ecosystem survives because the people who want to protect it have generally been more committed to that goal than the people who want to exploit it have been to theirs." He looked at the canopy above them. "That's not a guarantee of anything. It's just the current balance."
She put the stone down.
They walked through a part of the jungle where the canopy thinned, letting in more light and making the ground easier to cross. Suddenly, the young T. rex stopped and pointed its head toward a group of trees to the west, focusing on something only it seemed to notice.
Then the figures appeared.
---
They were humanoid and organized, carrying weapons that mixed local materials with things that didn't belong. Ethan counted eleven in the first group he could see, knowing that usually meant there were more hidden.
Brainchild stepped forward.
His large head was his most noticeable feature, and he seemed to treat it as a sign of superiority rather than just a trait. He carried himself with the confidence of someone used to being in charge and expecting things to go his way. He was short, clearly the brains of the group, pun intended, and spoke as if everyone should already know it.
"You're trespassing in a research area," he said, with the particular precision of someone who had prepared this statement and found it appropriately authoritative. "The Savage Land Mutates are the governing body of this region in the absence of other authority, and you will accompany us to the facility for processing."
Rogue looked at Brainchild. Then at Ethan. Then back at Brainchild with the expression she used when she had assessed a situation and found it below the threshold of concern. "We're not doing that," she said.
"The Mutates move on my command," Brainchild said, sounding like someone who didn't realize he was talking to people who had survived Sinister, the Phoenix bond, Weapon X, and even stopped Apocalypse.
The Mutates moved.
Jean raised one hand, and the three Mutates coming from the front stopped moving — not because they chose to, but because the telekinesis operating at her current level had encountered their forward momentum and found it entirely manageable. She held them in place with the focused calm of someone doing a task well within her current range.
Raven opened a portal using Nightcrawler's copied displacement and came out behind the leftmost group with the efficiency of someone who had been developing her combat teleportation for months. The Mutates she found behind her had the particular experience of encountering something they had not been briefed to expect, and the ice that followed from Bobby's copied ability was precise and effective rather than dramatic.
Rogue moved through the right side, using her Apocalypse-given strength to clear obstacles without hurting anyone—not killing or maiming, just using enough force to make standing in her way feel like a choice, not an accident.
Ilyana created stepping discs at angles that made the Mutates on the edge step through and reappear somewhere else. This confused them enough that they took three out of the fight at once.
Brainchild was not a combatant. He was watching the collapse of his numerical advantage with the expression of someone whose models had not accounted for this particular combination of capabilities, running rapid revisions against what he was observing.
The young T. rex, pressed against Raven's leg during the fight, saw a Mutate moving toward her back. Like any young predator protecting its bond, it lunged at the Mutate's ankle with the determination of something much bigger. It worked mostly because no one saw it coming.
The Mutate was not injured. The Mutate was surprised, briefly rendering him completely inoperative as a threat.
Raven handled the situation herself, without needing the assist, but the assist was noted.
Brainchild did what any trained strategist does when the odds turn—he pulled back, acting like it was a tactical move, not a loss. As he left, he spoke with the confidence of someone who still had another plan.
He called out—maybe a name, maybe a signal. The exact word was unclear, but the meaning was obvious.
They stood in a cleared section of jungle with the aftermath of a fight that had been several times more one-sided than Brainchild had planned for, and the juvenile T. rex pressed itself against Raven's leg with the confidence of something that had contributed and knew it.
Above the canopy, somewhere in the direction Brainchild had retreated toward, something was moving.
Something large.
Something with wings.
The noise wasn't like the pterodactyls they'd heard earlier. This sound was heavier, more purposeful—the wingbeats of something coming straight toward them.
Rogue looked up at the canopy.
"What is that?" she asked.
Ethan stared at the canopy, thinking of the name that had been on his mind since Brainchild's signal, and what was coming next.