Jason had never experienced an illusion like this before. He knew it was an illusion, of course, but that knowledge did nothing to help him escape it. The entire thing was simply too bizarre. He could not get out of it, yet he could not remain still within it either because there was nowhere to stay and nothing to do.
He stood in the middle of four distant cities. No matter which direction he chose, one of them would always be visible on the horizon. At first, he had walked confidently toward them, convinced he would eventually arrive. The strange thing was that he genuinely felt himself getting closer. The buildings became clearer, the roads more distinct, and hope would begin to grow within him. Yet after walking for what felt like days, he would realize that he had made no progress at all. The city remained just as distant as before.
Food and water were equally strange. He did not need them to survive, yet he still felt hunger and thirst. His stomach constantly ached. His throat constantly burned. He suffered all the discomforts of starvation without receiving the mercy of death. Staying in one place proved no better. Whenever he remained somewhere for more than a few hours, insects would begin appearing around him, stinging him relentlessly until he moved again. During the early days he had even tried eating them out of desperation, but they were far too small. Even catching hundreds of them achieved nothing.
Then there were the paper cuts.
Every single day a new one would appear somewhere on his body. A finger. An arm. A cheek. A foot. They never healed. At first he counted them, believing that eventually there had to be a limit. Later he counted the days instead. Eventually he stopped counting altogether.
Around two years passed before Jason truly understood that there was no escape. He tried everything he could think of. He attempted suicide countless times. He screamed for help. He apologized for things he had never regretted before. He begged anyone and anything that might be listening to save him. None of it accomplished anything.
The illusion simply continued.
Seven years was all it took.
By then, his body had become a grotesque collection of tiny wounds. There was barely any untouched skin left on him. Every movement hurt. Every breath irritated hundreds of cuts. He had become a living nightmare, trapped between endless discomfort and an inability to die.
Then suddenly it all vanished.
The endless plain disappeared. The distant cities disappeared. The insects disappeared. Jason found himself back in the farmhouse where it had all begun. Standing before him was Lex, slowly removing a hand from his forehead. His other hand rested against Regan's forehead before he removed that as well.
Regan remained silent for several seconds as she processed everything she had just witnessed through the shared illusion. Finally, she looked toward Lex with an expression that mixed disbelief, satisfaction, and relief.
“That was... incredible,” she said quietly. “I never thought something like that could even be possible. Thank you. With this, I can finally say I've taken my revenge.”
Lex hadn't actually done much beyond forcing Jason's mind into extreme thought acceleration while helping Regan maintain the illusion over those seven years. Most of the difficult work had been handled by Raphael, who ensured that neither the process nor the mental strain negatively affected Regan. Even so, the idea itself had been Lex's, and he wasn't entirely sure whether that made him feel better or worse.
Meanwhile, Jason slowly dropped to his knees. The confident manipulator who had spent years controlling others was gone. In his place remained a broken man whose eyes carried the weight of seven years of suffering.
“Please...” he whispered. “Kill me.”
“Okay.”
Lex answered without hesitation.
A moment later, telekinesis punctured Jason's heart. The former Mastermind collapsed onto the floor and never moved again.
Nobody objected.
Some believed he deserved far worse than a quick death. Others simply didn't care enough to argue. After everything they had witnessed and everything they had learned, Jason's fate inspired little sympathy.
Regan, however, continued staring at Lex with something dangerously close to reverence. Mystique noticed it immediately and felt her irritation rising. The Brotherhood had never truly earned the girl's loyalty. At best, they had offered her a means of opposing her father. Now even that was gone. Worse still, judging by the way she was looking at Lex, Mystique suspected that Regan would follow him without hesitation if given the opportunity.
“Lex,” Regan began somewhat nervously. “Can I call you Lex?”
“You already are.”
Regan laughed awkwardly before continuing.
“Right. What I actually wanted to ask is... can I join your group? I mean, you're obviously doing something to help mutants, and honestly... I owe you more than I can ever repay.”
Lex blinked.
“My group?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “I don't actually think I have a group. It's mostly just the three of us.”
“Actually, we should definitely create one.”
Sharon immediately spoke up from beside him. Having spent years as both a leader and a member of various heroic organizations, the idea appealed to her naturally. After everything she had experienced during the apocalypse, she found herself valuing dependable allies more than ever before.
“I'd like that.”
“Same here,” Donna added with a nod. “Honestly, having our own group would make things a lot easier.”
Lex looked between the two women before shrugging helplessly.
“Well, if the ladies have already decided, who am I to argue?”
The moment he agreed, Regan visibly brightened.
“So can I join?”
Before Lex could answer, another voice spoke up.
“Me too.”
Everyone turned toward Kitty. She looked slightly embarrassed by the sudden attention but continued anyway.
“I want to join too. As long as I can still live in New York.”
“I'd like to join as well,” Alison added after a moment of hesitation. “I still want to become a singer. That's what I really want to do. But that doesn't mean I can't help people too.”
Storm looked at the two girls with mild surprise. Only a short while ago they had been discussing whether they wanted anything to do with mutant organizations at all. Yet now both of them were volunteering without hesitation.
Then again, as she looked toward Lex, she found it difficult to blame them. Whatever else could be said about him, he had been the one who came for them when nobody else could. He had rescued them, protected them, and given them a sense of security that neither the X-Men nor the Brotherhood currently could.
Nearby, Mystique's expression grew even darker as she realized the same thing.
Emma Frost let out a quiet sigh before finally stepping forward.
“Lex... I'm Emma. We haven't properly met before, but I'm the White Queen of the Hellfire Club.” She paused briefly before continuing. “I wanted to tell you something. This entire operation was Jason's. The club—or at least most of us—had no idea what he was doing. That doesn't absolve us completely, and I'm not asking for forgiveness. I just wanted to apologize. To you, and to both of you girls as well.”
With that said, she turned and walked away.
Outwardly, Emma appeared calm and composed as always, but inwardly she was anything but. After witnessing what Lex had done to Shaw and Jason, she genuinely wasn't sure where she stood in his eyes. For all she knew, he might decide that being part of the Hellfire Club was enough to make her guilty as well. The thought of one of those terrifying green beams being aimed in her direction was not particularly comforting.
Thankfully, nobody stopped her.
Nobody threatened her.
Nobody even called after her.
By the time she disappeared from sight, Emma found herself releasing a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding.
Shinobi Shaw, meanwhile, had vanished at some point during the chaos. Whether he had fled immediately after his father's death or slipped away later, nobody knew. Lex certainly didn't care enough to investigate. As long as Shinobi wasn't causing problems, he wasn't worth the effort.
With everything finally over, Lex decided it was time to leave as well. After giving Regan, Kitty, and Alison his number, he headed outside alongside Sharon and Donna.
Only after stepping out of the farmhouse did he realize something rather embarrassing.
He didn't actually have a car.
Brisingr was also out of the question for now. After today's events and the exposure of one of his identities, he had already decided that he needed to establish another one entirely.
Originally, his various identities had mostly been useful for testing powers and avoiding attention. Now, however, he was beginning to see a far greater purpose for them.
A single individual possessing dozens of powers was bound to attract attention sooner or later. Worse, he would continue gaining more. At some point, people would start asking questions that couldn't reasonably be answered.
Creating separate identities would solve that problem.
Different powers.
Different reputations.
Different responsibilities.
In a way, it would be like storing powers across multiple people even though all of them were ultimately him.
There was also another realization that had settled into his mind after today's battle.
Conquest.
For the first time, he had decided to seriously consider it.
His father had always intended for him to conquer the Omniverse, and the rewards promised by the Essence system were enormous. Previously, he had viewed the idea as unnecessary. After all, he already possessed more power than most people could dream of.
Then Azazel had escaped.
Not because Lex was weak.
Not because he had lost.
Simply because Azazel happened to possess abilities and experience that countered what Lex could currently do.
That experience had taught him something important.
There would always be someone stronger.
Someone stranger.
Someone capable of exploiting a weakness he didn't even know he had.
The mindset of "I already have enough power" was dangerous.
If anything, today had proven the opposite.
“Do you need a ride?”
Storm's voice interrupted his thoughts.
Turning around, Lex found the X-Man standing nearby.
Apparently, standing outside a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere without transportation had made their situation rather obvious.
The ride back was somewhat awkward, but thankfully not unpleasant. After thanking the X-Men, the three eventually returned to their penthouse and, exhausted from everything that had happened, went straight to bed.
The same could not be said for everyone else.
While Lex slept, both the X-Men and the Brotherhood spent much of the night discussing the events that had unfolded.
For Charles Xavier, the fact that Kitty and Alison had chosen not to join the X-Men wasn't actually the primary concern. While disappointing, he could accept it. In his mind, what truly mattered was ensuring that young mutants did not walk a path that endangered either humanity or mutantkind. As long as the girls remained safe and relatively well-adjusted, he could live with their decision.
Besides, neither possessed a mutation so extraordinary that it demanded immediate recruitment.
No, the issue occupying Xavier's attention was Anna Marie.
As usual, Charles had examined the memories of everyone involved after they returned. What he discovered disturbed him more than he expected.
Unlike many of the others, Anna hadn't emerged from the illusion traumatized.
Instead, she had emerged changed.
The experience had fundamentally altered the way she viewed the world.
For perhaps the first time in her life, she was beginning to genuinely believe that a world without powers might actually be a better one.
Meanwhile, Erik found himself dealing with an entirely different problem.
The loss of Regan was a significant blow to the Brotherhood.
While not perfect, she was arguably their strongest psychic asset outside of exceptional cases.
Unfortunately, there was little he could do.
If a member chose to leave voluntarily, forcing them to stay would only create greater problems.
Just as this incident marked a turning point for Lex, it also marked a turning point in how the world began to view him.
News spread slowly at first.
Then rapidly.
From Wilson Fisk to Nick Fury, reports began circulating through every organization with influence in New York. Not everyone cared. Not everyone even paid attention.
But people who dealt in power, information, and influence could not simply ignore someone capable of killing Sebastian Shaw and dismantling Jason Wyngarde's operation in a single night.
Several days later, Nick Fury received the completed report on Lex Everhart.
It included everything SHIELD had managed to gather not only on Lex himself, but also on Sharon Rogers and Donna Troy.
The results were troubling.
Lex seemed to have appeared from nowhere. Records before July were practically nonexistent. Despite possessing enormous wealth, locating his family or tracing his background had proven impossible. On top of that, reports attributed multiple unrelated powers to him, making any attempt at classification increasingly difficult.
Donna Troy wasn't much better.
Officially, she was a freelance photographer and appeared to be an entirely ordinary young woman.
Until one looked deeper.
The deeper investigators dug, the stranger things became. Records consistently showed her looking the same age over a span of decades. The trail stretched back nearly thirty years before becoming increasingly difficult to follow.
And then there was Sharon Rogers.
The forged documents themselves weren't particularly impressive. SHIELD encountered forged identities all the time.
The problem was the surname.
Rogers.
Because Steve Rogers was not exactly an ordinary citizen.
Naturally, SHIELD had run DNA comparisons.
The results made absolutely no sense.
Sharon Rogers possessed DNA consistent with being the direct biological daughter of Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter.
Fury stared at the report for several seconds.
Then he stared at it some more.
Then he rubbed his temples.
Was there some secret daughter nobody knew about?
Had Steve somehow forgotten to mention having a child?
Was time travel involved again?
At this point Fury wasn't even sure which possibility would be worse.
“Motherfucker,” he muttered.
Somehow, despite not doing anything himself, another impossible problem had landed on his desk..