The Ikali artificial lake in Canada was, by official record, a civil engineering success—a testament to post-World War II Canadian-American cooperation, funded to guarantee essential irrigation and flood control for the regional agricultural community.
Over the decades, the surrounding land had blossomed into a thriving small town, its lifeblood drawn from the very water contained by the immense concrete barrier.
Yet, beneath the placid surface of the reservoir and within the decades-abandoned hydroelectric structure of the dam itself, lay General William Stryker's deepest, darkest secret: a clandestine fortress dedicated to total mutant extermination.
Stryker had poured his life's work into structurally and chemically modifying the dam, turning the ancient concrete into a labyrinth of sealed, radiation-shielded holding cells and advanced research laboratories.
Its primary operational function was to prevent both the escape of his captive meta-humans and the intrusion of external psychic threats. Mutants were his singular obsession, his mortal enemies, and every design choice within the base was engineered to exploit their weaknesses.
Inside this chilling, concealed bunker, the inhabitants—save for Stryker's specially indoctrinated security detail—were prisoners of war in a war no one knew was being fought.
For decades, Stryker's relentless efforts, fueled by his powerful backers on the Security Council, had amassed a grotesque menagerie of mutant captives. Some were merely apprehended criminals, but the vast majority were snatched from obscurity, their basic human rights summarily revoked.
More disturbing still, his prisons held numerous mutant children, stripped of their innocence and subjected to the same ruthless experimentation as their adult counterparts.
To Stryker and his soldiers, the subjects were not individuals; they were biological errors. The soldiers, numb to the ethical abyss they inhabited, felt no guilt observing the vile, inhumane tests.
The base was a perpetual theatre of suffering, where cries and screams served as the unremarkable background noise to a daily routine of cold, detached scientific inquiry. The only thing that mattered was the data.
The scene currently unfolding in the primary containment lab was a macabre validation of years of effort.
A powerful, struggling mutant was secured by heavy alloy chains to a high-backed chair. Several researchers in sterile white coats, their faces obscured by the reflective glare of their protective equipment, used a high-speed rotational trephine to bore a minute aperture into the subject's skull.
Through this opening, a thin needle administered a solution of faintly iridescent, alien-looking liquid.
The physiological response was dramatic but precisely monitored. The subject's initial, thrashing convulsions soon subsided.
The uncontrollable physiological fluctuations, which had been the hallmark of previous, failed attempts, diminished. His pupils dilated rapidly, then settled. The only movement was a slow, final flutter of the eyelids.
The doctors exchanged rapid, silent glances—a common, almost ritualistic acknowledgement of a breakthrough. A triumphant gleam was visible in the eyes of the lead researcher as he addressed the rigid figure standing beside him.
"General, we believe we have achieved a fully stable C-T-L (Control-Tolerance-Lysis) vector," the man in the white coat reported, his voice crisp and devoid of emotion.
The man beside him—General William Stryker—looked every inch the commander of this hidden domain. His graying hair was meticulously combed, his face stern and lined, his thin lips pressed into a tight, severe line. He exuded an intense, tightly-controlled military bearing.
Stryker moved closer to the captive, scrutinizing the mutant named Kane. Normally, the sight of the General would elicit terror, hatred, or violent resistance from the prisoners.
But now, Kane's gaze, fixed on Stryker, was utterly devoid of malice or fear. His expression was unsettlingly placid, a state of perfect, manufactured innocence—the look of an infant.
Stryker leaned in, his rigid face moving unnervingly close to the subject.
"Listen to me, Kane," Stryker commanded, his voice a low, gravelly whisper of absolute authority.
"I am your superior. I am the man you respect most, and you have always followed my every order without question. You believe everything I tell you is the absolute truth, and you are compelled to do anything necessary to achieve what I instruct."
Kane merely cocked his head slightly, the blank, childlike innocence remaining unbroken.
Satisfied, Stryker waved a hand toward the armed guard detail. "Soldier, release the subject's restraints."
"General, I strongly advise against this," the lead doctor immediately protested, stepping forward.
"These are only preliminary stability readings. There is no need for a field test with such risk. Subject 254 possesses high-level biomass manipulation. If the control vector fails, his ability could pose a catastrophic danger to the integrity of this entire chamber—including you."
Stryker's lips curled into a rare, cold smile. "Courage is why you remain technicians and I remain the commander. Follow my orders, Private. Release the bonds."
The soldiers obeyed instantly. Obedience to Stryker's command was the most fundamental requirement of life in the dam. They unclipped the heavy chains, allowing Kane to stand, completely unbound.
Kane did not flee or attack. Instead, he moved slowly, deliberately, falling into position behind Stryker like a perfect, obedient shadow.
Stryker beamed, pride in his successful mind control evident.
"Excellent, Kane. Now, I command you: Transform." He spun around, whispering the key directive. "Turn into your most devastating self. Your massive self."
Kane's wooden-like eyes flickered, a hint of hesitation—a vestige of his old consciousness—but it vanished instantly. He took two steps back, and his body began a rapid, biomechanical metamorphosis. His torso lengthened, his skin thickened into a coarse, woody texture, and he began to swell.
The transformation did not stop at his base form. A dark, bark-like outer sheath encased his musculature, and he surged upward, his form scraping the high ceiling of the laboratory. His skull was enveloped by a dense crown of green foliage, giving him the appearance of a massive, mobile tree trunk.
His limbs became immense, rooted tree trunks, each arm the thickness of a man's waist, swaying with the power held within them. Below, his legs split into thick, powerful root systems that immediately began to penetrate the reinforced concrete floor, anchoring him deep into the earth.
In moments, Kane was no longer human; he was a four-meter-tall humanoid tree, a devastating siege engine of organic matter. In this fully manifested state, his movements were ponderous, but his strength was immense.
A single swing of his massive, woody arm could deliver a kinetic impact exceeding two tons of force. Anchored by his roots, he could draw endless energy and nutrients from the soil, granting him phenomenal regenerative capabilities—and his bark skin could repel small arms fire with ease.
The danger of this form, as Stryker knew, was the short time limit; if sustained too long, the mutation would fully consume his brain, rendering him an actual, immobile tree.
Stryker watched, not to see if Kane would obey, but to observe the duration and finality of the controlled state.
"Hold the form, Kane," Stryker commanded, his voice a low rumble of scientific curiosity.
Time crawled. Kane stood motionless, the terrifying, bark-covered face showing only the blank compliance of the serum. He did not retreat, did not flinch, and did not revert. Two hours passed.
Stryker approached the immobile behemoth and struck the hard surface of Kane's arm with the flat of his palm—a muffled thud of solid, cured wood echoed in the lab.
"Kane. Subject 254. Do you acknowledge my command?" Stryker called out repeatedly.
Silence. The tree was biologically alive, the foliage was thriving, but the conscious, speaking mutant was gone. Kane's brain had reached the critical point of tree-like transformation—he was clinically brain-dead, permanently locked into his ultimate weapon form.
"It has worked," Stryker breathed, a look of grim ecstasy crossing his face. He drew his standard-issue sidearm and fired three rounds into the vast torso.
The bullets punched through the initial bark layer and embedded harmlessly in the thick, dense wood. No movement. No pain response. Perfect control and perfect immunity.
Stryker holstered his weapon, turning from the now-static giant. "Soldier, this asset is stationary. Saw him into manageable sections and move the remains to cold storage. He is no longer needed here."
He faced the white-coated doctors, his expression instantly snapping back to the rigid commander.
"Now, tell me. How confident are you in replicating this C-T-L serum? And precisely how many doses can you manufacture immediately?"
After a rapid, hushed consultation among the medical team, the lead doctor responded: "General, assuming the raw chemical supply is sufficient—which it is for now—we can produce ten immediate, stable doses. We will need to wait for Subject 147 to achieve full neural recovery before we can harvest the necessary catalyst for larger-scale production."
"Use every drop of the existing raw materials. Manufacture ten doses immediately," Stryker ordered with a decisive wave of his hand.
He walked over to the reinforced observation window, overlooking rows of prison cells where countless mutants watched him with sorrow and palpable hatred.
Stryker's knuckles were white, his thoughts flashing not to the successful experiment, but to the recent, infuriating theft of his Adamantium. That metal had been promised for the next-phase weapons—the delivery systems for the mutant-killing virus he had developed.
Now, thanks to the weak-willed cowards on the Council, the very asset I needed to secure the world is in the hands of SHIELD, who will inevitably lose it or hand it to some reckless fool.
"Mutants are indeed useful tools," Stryker muttered, his voice cold as the dam water outside.
"They provide the canvas for our necessary cleansing. I have been patient for too long. My son's sacrifice demands action. With these ten new C-T-L assets, my plan will not wait for the Security Council's incompetence. The purging begins now."
He would unleash the controlled assets on key targets, forcing the Council's hand and potentially exposing the reckless Dawn Knight as the new face of the enemy.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, in his opulent, high-security mansion, Zhou Yi was far removed from the cold concrete and desperate screams of Ikali Lake. He was currently indulging Serana's astrological curiosity, his mind relaxed but calculating. He knew the cost of his demands.
Zhou Yi understood that demanding the Adamantium and Vibranium was an act of geopolitical theft that would enrage powerful figures like General Stryker. His psychic abilities, honed through years of training, had already mapped the political and military landscape.
Stryker's base, his motives, and his obsession with the metals were all open secrets to Zhou Yi. He had leveraged SHIELD's need for the Dawn Armor to destabilize a far more dangerous opponent.
The greatest threat is always the fanatic with the resources, Zhou Yi reflected, casually moving a chessboard piece. Stryker had the Adamantium to create unstoppable anti-mutant weapons. Now, I have the Adamantium to stabilize the one thing that can protect humanity from cosmic threats.
The true purpose of the 200 pounds of Adamantium was not just to craft conventional weapons. It was the necessary substrate for the Alpha Nanometal. His current nanotech, while formidable, suffered from quantum decay at high energy output—a fatal flaw when facing beings who could warp reality or tear through spacetime.
The ultra-dense, molecular structure of Adamantium would act as a permanent, near-indestructible molecular scaffold, locking the nanobots into a stable lattice that could withstand the power of his amplified psychic abilities.
This was the key to his absolute kinetic defense system and the final evolution of his personal armor—not the high-tech suit he sold to SHIELD, but the one built entirely of his own power.
He had preemptively gutted Stryker's arsenal, not for malice, but for the ultimate strategic necessity of his own survival and the impending defense of Earth. He had traded a technological illusion for his future.
"You know, based on the celestial alignments, I think Commander Hill might have been born under a very challenging Mars conjunction," Serana mused, looking at a star chart on a nearby holographic screen.
Zhou Yi simply smiled, a flicker of genuine amusement in his eyes. "Perhaps, Serana. Or perhaps we simply stole her organization's future weapon by exploiting her ambition. The result is the same. The pieces are moving now, though, and I needed that metal to ensure I'm prepared for the first move Stryker is about to make."
He knew the General would retaliate not against the Council he feared, but against the weakness he perceived. The world was about to see what a desperate, fanatical man armed with ten psychically controlled super-soldiers could do.
And Zhou Yi needed his Alpha Nanometal ready for the chaos that was coming.