"That's exactly right, it's the Star Gang," Jin Hao declared, his voice echoing off the closed storefronts. He puffed out his chest, attempting to project authority he clearly hadn't earned.
"Starting now, this entire stretch of Chinatown is the undisputed territory of me, your new superior, Jin Hao! You and everyone else here are going to fall in line, pay your dues, and become my underlings." He smirked, the gesture ugly and menacing. "So, are you the only fool standing against me, or are you acting as the fool for the entire block?"
"Brother Wen…"
"Xiao Wen, please, don't provoke them!"
Zhong Qiang, Uncle Zhong, and a few of the earliest rising neighbors had been drawn out by the loud confrontation. Zhong Qiang and Uncle Zhong looked at Huang Wen with raw, unconcealed worry.
They knew Huang Wen was an unparalleled master of Wing Chun, a phenomenon with his fists, but the equation had changed drastically. The Star Gang wasn't relying on fists; they were armed.
What was the old adage? No matter how deep your martial skill, it fears the single kitchen knife. A kitchen knife was nothing compared to the black, cold steel of a modern firearm. And with the dawn just breaking, the response time of the police—even Jack's fast unit—might prove tragically slow.
"Star Gang, you say?"
A flicker of light appeared in the doorway of the Wing Chun school's neighboring building. It was Riesfisk, the hulking figure of the retired assassin, emerging to see what the commotion was about. He had heard of the Star Gang, a low-level crew barely a step above the pathetic thugs he'd seen Colin Firth dispatch.
The sheer audacity of these insects trying to stake a claim in the territory of a true master like Huang Wen was baffling. He was about to step out, his massive hands twitching, when a look from Huang Wen's eyes—a subtle, unspoken command—stopped him dead.
"And what exactly happens… if I decline your gracious offer?" Huang Wen asked, his voice entirely devoid of emotion, his eyes fixed on Jin Hao.
Jin Hao, his face already red with impatience, was tired of the theatrics. With a sudden, dramatic flourish, he ripped the pistol from his waistband, the dull clack of the metal echoing loudly, and pointed the dark muzzle directly at Huang Wen's forehead.
He grinned, a predator showing its teeth. "Then, Mr. Huang, I will be forced to treat you to some peanuts—the kind that put you to sleep permanently!"
"Ask Brother!"
"Master!"
"Xiao Wen, step back!"
Panic erupted among the small crowd of neighbors. They screamed, a collective, sharp intake of breath. The atmosphere instantly became heavier, filled with the certainty of violence.
"Then by all means," Huang Wen said, his smile perfectly calm, his gaze utterly fearless. He glanced down the barrel of the gun with detached interest. "You should absolutely try."
There was no fear in his eyes, only a profound, almost cosmic condescension, as if he knew something Jin Hao didn't. Or perhaps, Jin Hao correctly sensed, Huang Wen was completely certain that the gun was already useless.
Jin Hao's face darkened instantly, the mock bravado cracking under the unbearable pressure of Huang Wen's gaze. He felt the eyes of his men boring into the back of his neck; the challenge was too public. If he backed down now, he wouldn't just fail to collect protection money; the entire crew would scatter like dust, sensing his weakness. He had to fire.
With a loud "BANG!"—a sharp, deafening punctuation mark in the quiet morning—Jin Hao pulled the trigger. The gunpowder ignited, the casing ejected, and the copper-jacketed round hurtled towards Huang Wen's head.
Everyone in Chinatown froze, their hearts stopping mid-beat. Simultaneously, across the street, in the alley where the X-Men's battered metal box had just come to a jarring halt, Logan's enhanced senses registered the gunshot.
He sprang into action, not bothering with doors or windows, and launched himself out of the second-story window of the dilapidated building they had sheltered in, intending to intercept the lethal projectile.
But before Logan could complete his dive—
Huang Wen simply raised two fingers.
Not with the frantic speed of adrenaline, but with the cool, effortless grace of a man waving away an irritating fly. A faint, almost invisible current of refined Qi swirled around his fingertips.
The speeding bullet, which had been traveling at over a thousand feet per second, slammed into the almost-imperceptible barrier of pure, concentrated energy and was caught, utterly neutralized, between the index and middle finger of Huang Wen's right hand.
Silence. A silence deeper and heavier than the preceding gunshot.
"Of all the martial arts techniques," Huang Wen said, his voice calm, the smoke curling faintly from the spent projectile clamped between his fingers. "None are truly invincible, save only for the absolute supremacy of speed."
He then casually spread his fingers.
"Ding!"
The inert bullet dropped onto the concrete pavement, the small, sharp sound cutting through the air like a gong. It settled into the hearts of everyone watching—the neighbors, Jin Hao's men, and the shocked X-Men watching from across the street.
Huang Wen would never admit to the gaping, terrified thugs that he had, in fact, utilized a fraction of his newly refined Spirit (Shen) to temporarily slow his perception of time. Catching a bullet was impossible by the laws of physics alone, but for a Legendary master with 11 points of Shen—a profound, supernatural perception of reality—it became a dangerous, but achievable, party trick.
He still couldn't have pulled it off without the endless Qi support from the Regeneration Dragon Emblem, a fact that kept the system's warning about relying on external artifacts ringing loudly in his mind.
"G-gulp!" Jin Hao and the members of the Star Gang collectively swallowed, their dry throats constricting. The sheer impossibility of the feat had vaporized all their arrogance and bravado. They had never conceived that such martial skill was possible—that human flesh and will could defeat a firearm.
"How… how can anyone's martial arts be this powerful?" one of Jin Hao's younger, more educated thugs whispered, his face pale with shock.
"What's impossible about it? Just because you can't do it, does that mean our Brother Wen can't?" Zhong Qiang, who had witnessed the event from a place of relative safety, surged forward, his chest swelling with pride and a fierce, protective loyalty. He stared down at the crushed bullet, a hint of pure fanaticism in his eyes, once again utterly captivated by his Sifu's display.
"Steady, Zhong Qiang. Your focus should be on practical application, not showmanship. You should learn patience from someone like Huang Liang in this regard." Huang Wen patted his friend's shoulder, a signal for Zhong Qiang to step back toward the door of the martial arts school. He then nodded in the direction of Logan, who was mid-air, having launched himself off the second floor.
"He's only one man! Forget the fancy tricks! Fire! Shoot! Shoot together!" Jin Hao finally roared, snapping back to the horrifying reality that they were now facing an opponent who had just humiliated him in front of his entire crew.
He was too panicked to worry about murder charges or the inevitable police response; his reputation, and his life, were now on the line. "I don't believe he has enough hands to catch all our bullets!"
"WHOOSH!"
Just as the Star Gang members frantically began to draw their pistols, preparing to unleash a potentially devastating volley of lead—the pistols, and all metallic objects nearby, suddenly flew into the air, as if seized by an invisible, powerful force.
Huang Wen was momentarily stunned by the intervention. He immediately activated his sensory perception, directing his focus across the street.
He noticed the sleek, strange metal box—Magneto's impromptu transport—and the tall figure emerging from it. It was Eric Lehnsherr, the Master of Magnetism, who had lifted all the guns with a lazy wave of his hand.
But Magneto's magnetic field had swept too wide. The next thing to fly uncontrollably into the air, arrested mid-plunge from the second floor, was Logan. The mutant's adamantium skeleton, now suspended twenty feet in the air above the street, was completely at Magneto's mercy.
It was impossible to tell if Magneto and Logan shared some deeply twisted inside joke, or if Magneto simply didn't care about the collateral damage, but before Logan could even complete his ferocious dive, he was frozen, cursing silently in mid-air.
"Put me down, you arrogant bastard!" Logan roared, his pupils contracting into those of a predatory eagle, his gaze immediately locking onto Magneto and his group across the street. He didn't even care about the thugs anymore; this was a personal vendetta against the mutant who was now treating him like a metallic kite.
"What! What kind of tactic is this? How can he even attack his own people?!" Jin Hao and his men were utterly bewildered, assuming the man flying the weapons away was Huang Wen's secret collaborator. They couldn't conceive of a mutant conflict. They instinctively thought Huang Wen had become so ruthless that he was attacking his own allies.
"WHOOSH!"
Huang Wen merely shook his head at the ridiculous sight of the airborne Wolverine. He extended his hand, focused his newly refined Qi, and precisely struck the pressure points of every single member of the Star Gang from a distance. The thugs instantly went rigid, paralyzed, frozen in mid-step, their expressions locked in masks of confused terror.
"Zhong Qiang, call Jack now, and tell him to send a proper transport van for all of these gentlemen!" Huang Wen instructed, his voice ringing with authority. "The rest of you uncles and elders, go back inside for now. There are some unexpected complications that need to be addressed. Don't worry, this won't cause any lasting trouble for Chinatown."
"Xiao Wen, be careful now!" Uncle Zhong nodded solemnly, his faith in Huang Wen now absolute. He shot a meaningful glance at Zhong Qiang, urging him to hurry, and then quietly turned and retreated into the relative safety of his home.
Seeing this, the other neighbors exchanged nervous but respectful glances, quickly returning to their homes and closing their doors, their windows now only cracked open for nervous peering.
"What technique was that?" Mystique, who had only been able to observe the scene from a distance, asked Eric, a hint of genuine surprise crossing her perpetually shifting features as she looked at the rows of perfectly motionless thugs. "Could that person be another powerful psychic operating outside of Charles's influence?"
"No. He does not register on any known psychic wavelength," Magneto replied, his eyes narrowed, his gaze fixed on Huang Wen with an intensity that bordered on curiosity. He controlled the metal plate beneath his feet, now separated from the car, and slowly flew toward the Wing Chun school. "I think… I think I just heard something about it. They called it… martial arts. Chinese kung fu."
"Martial arts? That's ancient history!" Jean Grey shook her head, still trying to process the impossibility of the bullet catch. "It must be someone with a very sophisticated, non-telepathic ability. But how in the world is Logan connected to him? And more importantly, Eric, put Logan down right now!"
Jean Grey shot Magneto a look of such fury, backed by an accidental telepathic surge of pure psychic energy, that Magneto instantly withdrew his magnetic field.
Logan plummeted.
But before the metal-laced mutant could hit the concrete like a sack of bricks, a smooth, powerful stream of jade-green energy—Huang Wen's concentrated Qi—enveloped Logan. It arrested his descent, gently cushioning his fall, and slowly placed him on the ground.
"Qi?" Magneto said, the single word leaving his lips with the gravity of a profound realization. He recognized the nature of the energy, not as some crude, localized elemental force, but as the pure, life-force manipulation of esoteric martial arts lore. He gave Huang Wen a deep, challenging look. This was no ordinary human.
"Beep beep beep!"
Just then, the familiar sound of police sirens cut through the tense silence. Several squad cars, tires screeching lightly, pulled up in a coordinated motion at the edge of the alley. Jack was the first out of the lead vehicle, his eyes wide with professional astonishment when he saw the entire, menacing roster of the Star Gang frozen stiff in the street.
But Jack's astonishment quickly turned to raw terror. His eyes darted past the paralyzed thugs and locked onto the sight of the mutant terrorist, Eric Lehnsherr—the most wanted man on the planet—standing on a flying metal disc, barely thirty feet away from the Wing Chun school.
Jack's hand instinctively went to his holster, realizing he was caught between a street gang, a martial arts master, and a global supervillain.
The quiet morning had just turned into a nightmare.