The jungle exhaled mist as morning light pierced through the canopy, illuminating the wreckage of what had once been a luxurious villa. The structure now resembled a warzone—marble floors cratered, walls reduced to skeletal frames, the remnants of fine furniture scattered like kindling.
Lin Fan stretched, his bare feet crunching over shattered glass. The destruction was almost artistic in its completeness.
*"Note to self,"* he mused, *"next time, build with vibranium."*
A smirk tugged at his lips. Wakanda wouldn't miss a few tons of it.
The scent of charred bacon and coffee cut through the dust. Psylocke stood amidst the ruins of the kitchen, her psychic katana hovering over a makeshift grill, spearing strips of meat with lethal precision. The dark mana's influence still clung to her—subtle but undeniable. Her pupils, once a deep violet, now pulsed faintly with an eerie, otherworldly glow.
"You're up early," Lin Fan remarked, plucking a strip of bacon from midair before it could land on the blade's edge.
She didn't look at him. "Couldn't sleep. Kept dreaming of tentacles."
"Charming."
Across the wreckage, Sebastian Shaw surveyed the damage with the detached amusement of a man who had burned down his fair share of estates. He brushed a fleck of dust from his tailored suit sleeve.
"I've seen battlefields with more structural integrity," he remarked, stepping over a collapsed beam.
Emma Frost, perched on the only intact chair in the room, sipped tea from a miraculously unbroken china cup. "Darling, you're being generous. This looks like the aftermath of a Hulk tantrum."
Lin Fan grinned. "You should've seen the other guy."
Psylocke flipped a pancake with the flat of her blade. "There was no other guy. You sneezed and took out the east wing."
A beat of silence.
Then, laughter—dark, amused, the kind that came from people who had seen too much to be shocked by destruction anymore.
Shaw raised an imaginary glass. "To our host. The only man who can turn breakfast into a demolition project."
Emma's lips curled. "And here I thought the Hellfire Club had a monopoly on property damage."
Lin Fan snatched another piece of bacon. "You're all terrible houseguests, by the way."
Psylocke finally looked at him, deadpan. "Says the man who turned his home into modern art."
The banter was sharp, effortless. But beneath it, tension hummed. The Hellfire Club wasn't here for breakfast. And Psylocke's grip on her psychic blade was just a little too tight.
Something was coming.
And they all knew it.
---
The Road to Westchester
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters lay a thousand kilometers northeast—a distance Lin Fan could cross in seconds if he wished. But speed wasn't the point.
The point was making an entrance.
Psylocke's hands twisted in the air, violet energy spiraling between her fingers. The dark mana within her resonated, reacting to the lingering traces of Kamar-Taj's magic in her cells. The air before her split like fabric, threads of reality unraveling to form a jagged portal.
It flickered, unstable.
"Fifty kilometers out," she said through gritted teeth. "Their wards are stronger than I remember."
Lin Fan studied the rippling gateway. "Will it hold?"
Her katana materialized at his throat, its edge humming with restrained power. "Walk through and find out."
Behind them, Shaw sighed, adjusting his cufflinks. "If this is the quality of your transportation, I'd rather take a limousine."
Emma glided past him, her white dress untouched by debris. "Then stay. I, for one, am curious to see what has Charles so frightened that he's turned his school into a fortress."
The Hellfire Seven stepped through—
—and into a warzone.
---
The school's grand hall was a masterpiece of stained glass and polished oak, sunlight streaming through depictions of mutant history. Young students sat in rapt attention as Professor X's calm voice filled the room.
"—and the first recorded mutant emerged in ancient Mesopotamia, though some scholars argue—"
The teacup in his hand shattered.
Silence.
Everyone in the room gasped in unison. Cyclops' visor activated with a hydraulic hiss.
"Professor?"
Charles Xavier's fingers tightened on his wheelchair's armrests. His voice, when it came, was barely above a whisper.
"Lock down the Cerebro wing. Now."
Outside, the sky rippled.
Not with clouds.
With something far, far worse.
Lin Fan's boots cratered the lawn as he landed. Psylocke touched down beside him, blades already drawn. Behind them, the Hellfire contingent fanned out—Shaw with the lazy confidence of a predator, Emma with the poised stillness of a queen surveying her chessboard.
Storm met them at the entrance, the air around her crackling with ozone.
"Turn back."
Lin Fan spread his arms, grinning. "Or what? You'll rain on my parade?"
From the upper floors, a psychic scream tore through the mansion—raw, unfiltered power that shattered every east-facing window in a storm of glass.
Jean Grey's voice.
Emma Frost went very, very still.
"Ah," she murmured. "Now I understand the Shields."
---