"It's simply too great a risk for any one of us to proceed alone. Even Charles, with all his vast power, fell victim to Stryker's trickery," Ororo cautioned, her voice a deep rumble of worry, glancing sideways at Jean Grey. She knew the terrifying potential dwelling within Jean, the Phoenix Force, which could undoubtedly burn through Stryker's entire operation.
But she also knew that Jean's powers were terrifyingly unstable, a barely contained cataclysm. Rushing her into a situation where she might lose control was an unacceptable gamble.
"Boss, what's your take on this whole mess?" Logan sidled up to Huang Wen, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial growl. "Now that you've heard the name Lake Alkali, do you have some ancient Chinese wisdom on how we can get there fast? That tin can of Erik's is too slow, and Nightcrawler is a one-trip pony."
"I can certainly transport all of you to the location, but a reconnaissance run is absolutely mandatory first," Huang Wen replied, his tone firm. He wasn't about to expose his power system's limitations—the significant Qi drain required to transport multiple people over such a distance—nor the specific method of the Dream Butterfly Escape Technique just yet.
"How about this: Nightcrawler will take me there first, giving me an initial assessment. If the area is secure enough for a full team arrival, I'll then bring everyone else over in one go."
"This…" A hint of profound indecision flickered in Nightcrawler's yellow eyes as he looked nervously at Jean Grey and Ororo. The two female leaders of the X-Men were frowning unconsciously.
They maintained a deep, instinctive distrust of Huang Wen; he was an absolute unknown, a man who possessed power they couldn't identify, whose intentions were completely veiled. Was he a friend, or merely another dangerous factor in a world already overflowing with them?
"I accept the terms," Magneto interjected, cutting through the silence with his customary decisive authority. He didn't care what unknown motive drove Huang Wen; as long as the man could serve as a fast-track delivery system to William Stryker, that was sufficient. His priority was Charles, and speed trumped safety protocols. "In that case, we will trouble you, sir."
"Understood." Nightcrawler took a deep, steadying breath. His eyes briefly flashed with a faint, internal white light, as if recalling or calculating a precise destination coordinate. In the comics, he was often limited to only teleporting to locations he could visually perceive.
However, the current Nightcrawler's abilities, bolstered either by his own development or the immediate need, seemed far more potent, allowing him to 'jump' based on memory or psychic imprint, likely aided by Jean Grey's recent probe.
The blue-furred mutant quickly approached Huang Wen, placed one three-fingered hand firmly on the master's shoulder, and with a resounding "BAMF!", the two instantly dissolved into a swirling wisp of black-and-sulphurous mist, disappearing completely from the spot.
"Holy hell!" Zhong Qiang involuntarily burst out a raw curse, then, realizing the sudden, absolute silence and the collective focus of the world's most powerful mutants upon him, he clamped his mouth shut awkwardly.
"You're not even a little surprised by that, Zhong Qiang?" In the end, Zhong Qiang couldn't resist turning to Reece Fisk and asking the question that burned on his tongue.
"Surprised? You'll get used to it," Reece Fisk replied, offering a nonchalant, almost world-weary shrug. "We're surrounded by people who can shoot fire, turn into ice, or control the entire electromagnetic spectrum. What's so different about a puff of smoke?"
"How can that be the same? Brother Wen achieved his power through disciplined, difficult training! It's all pure hard work!" Zhong Qiang protested, his loyalty to his Sifu overriding common sense.
"He trained himself to do that?" For a moment, even Magneto, Jean Grey, and Ororo's eyes flickered with a genuine, unsettling interest. Although Huang Wen had claimed to be a successor of ancient Chinese martial arts, they had dismissed it as a convenient cover story.
But now, seeing the strange, almost magical effect of the master's pressure points and the instantaneous disappearance, their cynicism gave way to grudging skepticism. If true, the concept of a self-trained, non-mutant individual achieving such abilities was a game-changer for the mutant race's perceived superiority.
At Lake Alkali, two figures suddenly materialized on the shoreline, the air briefly displaced and humming with residual energy. It was Huang Wen and Nightcrawler.
Huang Wen, thanks to the continuous cycle of the Rebirth Dragon Chapter—a technique that replenished and purified his Essence, Energy, and Spirit with phenomenal speed—felt absolutely no discomfort from the bizarre, dimension-skipping journey.
Nightcrawler, however, was a mess. His typically dark blue face was now stark white, and his entire body went limp, his limbs trembling violently, the teleportation having clearly demanded a catastrophic amount of energy. He crumpled, almost falling into the sandy earth.
"Steady yourself." Huang Wen caught the exhausted Nightcrawler with a swift, steadying grip, holding him upright. He then quickly surveyed their surroundings, taking in the serene, yet hauntingly desolate landscape. "Is this the spot? Lake Alkali?"
"Th-thank you, sir. Yes… this is it," Nightcrawler whispered, his voice weak and thready. He nodded tiredly. "Jean Grey's psychic projection anchored the location in my mind. I can still vaguely sense the psychic echoes of the memory she just read… the facility is beneath us."
"You can vaguely sense the psychic echo of her memory reading?" Huang Wen glanced at Nightcrawler with genuine surprise. This was an unexpected side effect.
It suggested that Nightcrawler, who had always seemed to be purely a physical transporter, might possess an untapped talent for spiritual or psychic connection, allowing him to retain the faint remnants of Jean's work.
"It is fine. I will take you back shortly." Huang Wen quickly dismissed the distraction, shaking his head gently. He then closed his eyes, taking a deep, centering breath, and released the full, immense scope of his Sensory Divine Power—his Shen—to investigate the hidden situation beneath the earth.
The facility was deep, encased in a mix of titanium, concrete, and high-density polymer—materials designed to block both Magneto's magnetism and Charles's telepathy. But Huang Wen's Shen was not the same as either of theirs.
It wasn't magnetic energy, nor was it electromagnetic waves; it was a pure, non-physical spiritual force, an extension of his absolute internal awareness, like plunging an infinitely sensitive fishing line into the earth.
He quickly located the heart of the facility. Underground, Charles Xavier sat in his wheelchair, visually incapacitated and trapped in a meticulously crafted illusion engineered by Jason Stryker, who sat similarly paralyzed in his own chair beside the main control console. Charles was positioned directly in front of the colossal, gleaming machinery of the Cerebro Enhancement Machine.
In the illusion that Jason projected into Charles's mind, everything seemed normal. Charles was at the familiar Xavier's Academy for Gifted Youngsters, and he had brought Jason Stryker, appearing as a frail, lost young mutant, to the outside of the Cerebro secret room.
Jason had convinced Charles with a pitiful lie that he was going to use Cerebro to find their "lost and hidden mutant brethren."
In the chilling reality, however, if Charles were to put on the enhancement headset and fully deploy his power under Jason's psychic guidance, he would be forced to target and instantly extinguish every mutant life form on the planet—a devastating, one-hundred percent kill-shot against all but the most durable, like Magneto (if protected) and Logan.
"It seems an unexpected guest has arrived at our academy," Charles suddenly said, halting his push toward the secret room door in the illusion. He lifted his head within the manufactured reality and glanced vaguely outside the walls, his gaze—and his power—seeking out the intrusion.
"Strange. He is not one of my students, nor one of my allies, but he seems to possess a mental awareness similar to my own. Who is he, and why is he prying?"
"Not one of our own? Then we must expel him immediately!" Jason Stryker's face contorted slightly in fear within the illusion. He quickly stepped forward, his voice low and urgent. "Professor, we cannot allow any interruption to our paramount task of finding our missing compatriots! Drive him out!"
"Indeed, the noble search for our lost kin must not be disturbed by external interference," Charles, fully trapped in the convincing, gentle snare of Jason Stryker's illusion, wholeheartedly believed every manipulative word. He nodded resolutely, and a colossal, terrifying wave of raw mental force surged outward—not merely in the physical world, but specifically targeting the point of the intrusion.
And that point of intrusion was precisely the delicate, extended thread of Shen that Huang Wen had projected beneath the earth.
"URRRGH!"
Huang Wen's face turned ghastly white. He felt an agonizing, sharp spike of pain, as if a white-hot drill bit had bored directly into the core of his consciousness. His fine, extended senses were instantly obliterated, scattered into nothingness, and forcefully yanked back into his physical body on the lakeshore.
It was an attack of such magnitude, such pure, unadulterated psychic force, that it felt like his very soul had been torn open and slammed shut.
However, the damage was immediately countered. Thanks to the relentless, curative power of the Rebirth Dragon Chapter—a foundation of continuous regeneration—Huang Wen's complexion and internal spiritual power recovered with astonishing speed, the trauma fading almost as quickly as it had struck.
"Such power! He is truly terrifying!" A thought flashed through Huang Wen's mind, even as the lingering psychic ache subsided.
The massive mental backlash he had just endured had instantly pulverized his fully extended senses, proving unequivocally that even with the immense, passive blessing of his core cultivation technique, his spiritual power was still leagues behind the raw, catastrophic force wielded by a fully realized, world-class telepath like Charles Xavier, especially when amplified by Cerebro (even if the amplification was only felt by the attacker).
"However," a secondary, more hopeful realization surfaced, "had I activated the Invincible Vajra Divine Skill beforehand, the defensive barrier provided by that technique, combined with the Rebirth Dragon Chapter's immediate healing, would have made me considerably more resilient. I would not have been so vulnerable, even if I still could not have stood up to the sheer power of Charles's attack."
"What is wrong, sir? You look quite unwell," Nightcrawler turned his head weakly to look at Huang Wen, his blue face still pale from the teleportation, his brow furrowed in confusion at the sudden shift in the master's demeanor.
"It's nothing. Just a slight adjustment needed. We have what we came for. Let's return," Huang Wen said, quickly clearing his mind of any lingering dread or complex thought. There was no need to linger and risk a secondary attack.
He initiated the Dream Butterfly Escape Technique. Unlike the violent, smoky 'BAMF' of Nightcrawler's teleportation, Huang Wen's technique was silent, graceful, and instantaneous.
With a gentle shimmer, both Huang Wen and the bewildered Nightcrawler transformed not into mist, but into mere specks of shimmering light—or perhaps, they simply ceased to exist in that location—and instantly vanished from the lakeside.
"Have the unwanted guests finally departed?" Jason Stryker asked Charles within the illusion, his voice dripping with false concern.
"Yes, he has been effectively driven away," Charles responded, his voice still containing an undercurrent of deep uncertainty. "But there was something… unsettling about him. Something that felt ancient, yet alien to our kind."
"Do not dwell on it, Professor. It is irrelevant," Jason Stryker quickly pushed the point aside, stepping forward with renewed urgency. "What matters now is finding our compatriots quickly! Come, let us proceed!"
"You are correct." Charles nodded, pushing his wheelchair forward into the illusory entrance of the secret room.
"Whoosh!"
Huang Wen and the now completely bewildered Nightcrawler reappeared back in the center of the Wing Chun martial arts school.
Nightcrawler blinked, his mind struggling to comprehend the journey. He hadn't exerted any energy, there was no sound, no smoke, no strange smell. They had simply been there, and now they were here. A flicker of profound doubt crossed his eyes, questioning everything he thought he knew about spatial displacement.
"Hmm?" Magneto, Jean Grey, Ororo, and the others, who had been watching the empty spot where the pair had vanished, all sharpened their gazes simultaneously.
They instantly realized the profound difference: the sudden, silent return was not Nightcrawler's teleportation technique! Huang Wen possessed another ability entirely, one far more refined, and perhaps, far more dangerous.