Ororo Munroe, also known as Storm, was currently in a difficult position.
It had all started a few days ago when two of their students disappeared before the X-Men could even reach them. Ever since then, the mansion had remained tense.
Even with Charles personally investigating the matter, very little had been uncovered.
Until about a day ago.
An anonymous phone call had suddenly reached the Xavier Institute.
The voice had been distorted beyond recognition, neither male nor female, carrying almost no distinguishing features at all. Yet the caller had calmly informed them that the missing girls were currently in the hands of the Hellfire Club.
They claimed to be enemies of the Hellfire Club and said they simply wanted to foil whatever plans the organization had.
Soon afterward an e-mail followed containing all the information they had promised.
The information itself wasn't much.
Just a location.
A name.
And suspicions.
No actual evidence.
Still, with Charles Xavier sitting inside the mansion surrounded by some of the strongest telepaths on Earth, information could be verified much faster than normal.
Of course, the location itself had protection against telepathy.
But the people outside it didn't.
After hours of searching through minds connected to the area, tracing rumors and fragmented memories, one thing became clear.
Something suspicious was definitely happening at that farmhouse.
The real problem however was that the entire thing could very well be a trap.
Ororo stood near the large windows of the briefing room with her arms folded tightly as rain clouds slowly gathered outside in response to her mood.
Behind her, Logan leaned against the wall impatiently while Jean sat quietly beside Charles, visibly frustrated.
“Girls are missing and we're still sitting around talking,” Logan growled impatiently from the wall he was leaning against.
“Logan,” Charles warned calmly.
Logan scoffed.
“What? I'm saying what everyone's thinking, Chuck.”
A brief silence filled the room before Ororo finally spoke up.
“He's not wrong,” she said while folding her arms tightly. “If the information is real, then every moment we delay gives them more time.”
Charles remained silent for a moment.
The issue wasn't simple.
Scott and Bobby were currently away on another mission alongside several other members, leaving the mansion without its strongest field team.
Of course, Ororo was more than confident that she, Jean, Logan, Colossus and Anna could still handle the mission.
But confidence and recklessness were two very different things.
Especially when the Hellfire Club was potentially involved.
And even their current team had its own issues.
Logan hated coordinated plans.
Jean's powers still occasionally slipped beyond her control.
And Anna...
Anna barely liked using her powers at all.
Still, the idea of simply leaving those girls there while they might be experimented on was not something Ororo could accept.
Meanwhile, deep within the Brotherhood Headquarters, Mystique returned bearing good news.
The moment she entered the room, several eyes immediately shifted toward her.
Pyro looked up from the couch while Regan straightened slightly near the table. Across the room, Erik remained seated in silence, though the air itself seemed to sharpen around him.
“I found Jason's base.” Mystique announced simply.
The atmosphere in the room changed instantly.
She calmly explained everything she had learned while infiltrating Lex and Sharon.
And the moment Erik heard about Azazel and his tendency to eat mutants...
A wave of fury passed through the room.
Metal objects throughout the headquarters began humming softly.
Several bent slightly under invisible pressure.
“I never thought that asshole would stoop so low he'd supply his own race’s meat.” Regan muttered coldly, referring to her father.
“If you'd stayed and fed us information instead of running away, maybe we would've known what Jason was doing years ago.” Dom replied sharply.
Regan immediately glared at him.
“Dom,” Mystique interrupted before things could escalate further. “Now is not the time to blame teammates. We already have the information. We should focus on how to use it.”
“What's there to think about?” Pyro scoffed while flames flickered across his fingertips lazily. “We go there and burn the place down.”
Before anyone else could respond, Erik finally spoke.
“Before everything else...” his calm voice instantly silenced the room. “Tell me about the Omega Level Mutant.”
Mystique sighed quietly.
“It is hard to understand him.”
That answer alone immediately caught everyone's attention.
“The boy has no goals, no idea what's happening around him and just seems to live his life however things go.” Mystique explained while leaning lightly against the table. “He simply enjoys whatever is happening around him.”
Pyro frowned slightly.
“He sleeps around with women yet also genuinely cares for them,” Mystique continued. “He's wealthy—or at least has more money than he knows what to do with considering he's already bought multiple properties around New York—yet still behaves like a completely ordinary person.”
“And?” Erik asked.
Mystique crossed her arms thoughtfully.
“He doesn't think of himself as someone important,” she finally concluded. “Someone like that will probably align much more naturally with Charles than with us.”
The room fell quiet for a moment.
Then Regan suddenly spoke.
“How about using the Hellfire Club against itself?” she suggested. “They forced him to join, didn't they?”
A small smile appeared on Mystique's face.
“If we use that properly,” Regan continued, “getting him on our side shouldn't be difficult at all.”
As both mutant groups prepared to rescue the two girls kidnapped by Jason, Lex arrived at the location Angela had shared with him.
The moment he stepped out of the car, he could already hear fighting from several streets away.
Metal clashing.
Glass shattering.
People shouting.
As he rushed toward the source of the noise, the scene that greeted him looked like complete chaos.
The Hand had flooded the entire street.
Black-clad ninjas covered rooftops, alleyways and even the fire escapes of nearby buildings while several people fought desperately in the middle of it all.
Lex immediately recognized Daredevil and Angela.
Jessica was there too, throwing people around with frightening strength. Nearby a massive black man was physically using his body as a shield, tanking blades and smashing ninjas aside with sheer force.
The most surprising one however was a young man whose fists glowed bright gold every time he punched. Every hit carried enough force to send ninjas flying several meters away.
Just then Lex also saw Ava arrive.
Still wearing the White Tiger suit, she dropped down from above and immediately joined the fight without hesitation.
The problem however was obvious.
There were simply too many ninjas.
Even with all of them fighting together, they were completely surrounded and getting out looked almost impossible.
Lex immediately joined in.
Ebony and Ivory appeared in his hands and he rapidly fired several shots into the battlefield.
Three ninjas collapsed instantly.
Then another two.
But the moment the Hand noticed him—
Everything changed.
Almost every ninja suddenly stopped fighting the others and turned toward Lex simultaneously.
The shift was so sudden even Daredevil noticed it.
It felt wrong.
Like every single one of them had received the exact same order at once.
And then they all rushed him.
The other heroes immediately tried helping him, attacking the ninjas from behind, yet the Hand completely ignored them now.
Only Lex mattered.
Within moments he found himself entirely surrounded.
Blades came at him from every direction.
Immediately Lex manipulated the moisture in the air and created several dozen sharp ice spearheads around himself before spinning them rapidly using telekinesis.
The air itself seemed to howl.
The rotating ice formed a deadly circular barrier around him, tearing through any ninja that came too close.
Bodies fell one after another.
Yet they kept coming.
Some willingly impaled themselves onto the spinning ice just to get closer to him.
Others crawled over corpses without hesitation.
Lex quickly realized the guns weren't nearly as useful in such close quarters and stored Ebony and Ivory away before taking out the vibranium sword.
But instead of wielding it normally, he suspended it in the air with telekinesis.
The blade immediately shot forward at frightening speed.
It pierced through one ninja before curving unnaturally midair and slicing through another's neck. A moment later it stabbed through someone's skull before flying back around Lex defensively.
The floating sword moved almost like a living thing.
Even the others fighting nearby couldn't help but stare at it occasionally.
Within minutes almost half the ninjas had been cut down.
But instead of relief, panic spread across the heroes' faces.
“Merlin, come here!” Angela shouted while slashing another ninja across the chest. “The ninjas are going to revive, we need to get out of here before they do.”
Lex frowned for a second.
Then he saw it.
The corpses started moving.
Broken bones twisted back into place.
Deep wounds slowly sealed themselves.
Several dead ninjas suddenly gasped before standing again as if nothing had happened.
“Fuck,” Lex muttered.
Immediately he tried another technique he had developed recently.
Using telekinesis he focused on the ninjas' throats and started crushing them internally.
Several collapsed while clawing at their necks.
Only for Lex to realize it was actually slower than simply impaling them with ice.
The realization barely had time to settle before more ninjas reached him again.
Blades slammed into his shoulders and sides repeatedly while others physically grabbed onto him trying to hold him down.
Lex regenerated almost instantly but there were simply too many of them.
For the first time during the fight he genuinely felt overwhelmed.
The pressure from every direction was becoming suffocating.
He immediately blasted several ninjas away from himself with telekinesis before shouting toward the others.
“You guys run away, I'm gonna use something big but it might hit you too, so please get away from here.”
The ninjas ignored him entirely.
The others however immediately started retreating.
At the very least they trusted him enough to understand he wasn't joking.
Lex waited until they were far enough away.
Then he used something he had never tried before.
He poured everything he could into his telekinesis at once.
The pressure in the air became almost unbearable for a brief moment.
And then—
A massive wave of telekinetic force exploded outward in every direction.
The entire neighborhood shook violently as if an earthquake had erupted beneath the street.
Concrete cracked.
Windows shattered.
Several nearby cars were thrown sideways.
Every ninja around him was launched hundreds of meters away almost instantly.
Even the heroes further away were knocked off their feet from the shockwave alone.
For several seconds afterward the entire street disappeared beneath smoke, dust and debris.
Lex stood there breathing heavily in the middle of the ruined road.
Just as he was about to relax slightly, he noticed another figure walking through the dust toward him.
At first glance the man looked like another Hand ninja.
Black clothing.
Masked face.
Katana at his side.
Yet something about him felt completely different.
The other ninjas moved silently and lightly.
This man's footsteps were heavy.
Deliberate.
Every step carried a strange sense of confidence behind it.
“You've caused quite a lot of trouble tonight,” the man said calmly.
His voice was deep and strangely steady despite the destruction around him.
“I really didn't intend to come here personally just to capture a mutant. But it seems these corpses are too incompetent to handle you properly.”
Lex narrowed his eyes.
“And who are you?”
The man stopped several meters away.
“I am Kazann.”
He slowly raised one hand toward Lex.
The moment he did, Lex suddenly felt something foreign trying to force itself into his mind.
Cold.
Corrupt.
It felt like something was trying to peel him apart from the inside.
Yet nothing actually happened.
Kazann's expression changed slightly.
Confusion briefly appeared on his face.
He tried again.
Harder this time.
Still nothing worked.
No corruption.
No control.
No influence whatsoever.
Lex obviously didn't wait around.
He immediately focused telekinesis around Kazann's throat and crushed it completely.
Bone shattered loudly.
Yet the demon didn't react at all.
Even with his neck twisted unnaturally, Kazann simply looked at him silently for a moment.
Then he moved.
Lex barely saw it happen.
One moment Kazann stood several meters away.
The next his fist slammed directly into Lex's chest.
The impact instantly shattered Lex's ribcage and damaged his heart.
Lex was launched through the air violently before crashing through part of a nearby building.
The impact alone broke several more bones, including parts of his skull.
His body immediately started healing, but before he could even fully recover, Kazann was already standing over him.
The demon quietly watched flesh and bone repair themselves.
As Lex struggled to move properly, Kazann slowly raised his hand again, preparing to strike once more.
But before the punch could land—
A black vibranium spear suddenly pierced straight through Kazann's head from behind.
The force of the impact pushed the demon several steps forward.
Blue and silver energy faintly shimmered across the spear tip beneath the night sky.
For a brief moment neither of them moved.
Then Kazann slowly reached up and pulled the spear from his head.
Half of his face was simply gone now, leaving behind a horrifying hole through his skull.
Yet despite that, he still remained standing.