The metal deck of the Quinjet felt incredibly cold against my bare back as I removed my ruined top. My vision was blurring at the edges, the vibrant holographic gold of my System interface flashing a critical warning that my Chi had plummeted into the double digits. The sheer physical toll of utilizing my chi enhanced Succubus strength to endure the Goblin's razor-bats, combined with projecting a Level 5 Aura over the entirety of Times Square to maintain the Pack's synergy, had drained me completely. I was running on fumes, and the Pack could feel it.
Through the golden, thrumming tether of our Dawngleam bonds, panic and fierce protectiveness flooded my senses. Before I could even attempt to sit up, strong hands were guiding me down.
"We've got you, Alpha," Scott growled, his voice thick with the gravelly resonance of his werewolf nature.
Peter was right beside him, his mask completely discarded, his hazel eyes wide with a frantic, devoted need. I had been planning to slowly acclimate the team to the realities of my fae nature, carefully building up to the idea of Pack intimacy and group feeding in front of the others just in case of an emergency exactly like this. Looking at the unfiltered hunger and loyalty in their eyes, I realized I had severely underestimated them.
The rest of the Pack—Frank, Roy, Angel, will, Ronnie, Ralph—remained in the rear or front of the cabin. They didn't avert their eyes in shame, nor did they crowd us. They stood as a silent, respectful guard, understanding perfectly that their Alpha required immediate sustenance to survive. Their presence wasn't a distraction; it was an intoxicating reinforcement of my absolute authority.
"You need Chi, Dennis," Peter whispered urgently, his hands already working the tactical clasps of my suit. "Right now."
Within seconds, Peter had stripped away my pants. The cool air of the cabin hit my skin, but it was immediately replaced by the searing heat of Peter's mouth. He didn't hesitate. He took me deep, his tongue and lips move with a desperate, and incredibly enthusiastic but not very skilled rhythm in the back of my mind I decided to have Peter suck me off more often in the future get his skill level up. A sharp gasp escaped my lips as the first trickle of golden, delicious devoted Chi began to siphon from him into my empty reserves. It tasted like every delicious thing I've ever ate in my life and pure, unconditional worship.
But Scott wasn't about to let Peter carry the burden alone. I felt the heavy shift of the werewolf's weight as Scott stripped off his own tactical pants. The scent of pine, musk, and pure Alpha dominance saturated the air. Without a single word of warning, Scott aligned himself and pushed inside me, taking me raw and rough.
I threw my head back against the metal deck, a choked cry of sheer pleasure tearing from my throat. We both liked it rough, and Scott knew exactly how to hit the deepest, most sensitive nerves. With every brutal, claiming thrust, a massive wave of dense rich, feral werewolf Chi crashed into my system. My Chi began to rapidly regenerate, the dull ache in my muscles vanishing instantly under the deluge of energy.
Peter pulled back from my waist, his face flushed and his chest heaving. He reached down, thoroughly lubricating my aching length with a slick, unpracticed motion. He then threw his own red and black uniform pants to the side, straddling my hips with an eager urgency.
"My turn, Alpha," Peter breathed, his eyes shining with absolute adoration as he sank down onto me.
The sensation of being entirely surrounded by my Rank 3 Life Partner and my Rank 2 Companion was blindingly intense. The Chi transfer became a cyclical vortex of energy, pulling from them both simultaneously. But Peter, unnecessarily worried about hurting me by using to much force, still relatively new to the physical demands of his enhanced body and completely overwhelmed by the bond, was moving too slowly for mine and Scott's preferred ravenous, feral pace.
With a low, disapproving growl, Scott reached forward. He grabbed my legs, wrapping them tightly around his own muscular waist to secure his brutal leverage. He never slowed down, pounding into me with relentless, hammering force that a normal human never would've been able to handle. Then, Scott wrapped his arm around Peter and used his large hand to grip Peter's hip.
"Faster, little spider," Scott commanded, his voice vibrating deep through my chest. As he used the other hand to turn Peter's face toward himself and proceeds to make out with Peter right in front of me unquestionably the hottest thing ever.
Scott guided Peter's movements, forcing the young hero to ride me faster and harder than he could have managed on his own right now. The friction was absolute perfection. The Quinjet cabin echoed with our unrestrained cries of sheer pleasure. My System window exploded with notifications, the Chi gauge rocketing from two digits all the way to its maximum capacity in a matter of minutes. The raw, unfiltered energy of the werewolf and the spider-totem, super-powered devotion of the two merged within me visible waves of Chi flowing from them to me.
By the time we all went over the edge, collapsing into a tangled, heavily panting pile on the floor, I wasn't just healed. I felt like I was practically glowing with divine power. As the Quinjet touched down silently in the subterranean hangar of our mansion, I let the exhaustion finally claim my physical body, secure in the absolute devotion of my Pack. The world outside was reacting to our debut, but in here, I was already a god.
***
Xavier's POV
The cold metal of the Cerebro helmet rested heavily against my temples, the massive spherical chamber of the sub-basement amplifying my consciousness until it spanned the entire globe. I had been scanning the eastern seaboard, searching for the faint, terrified sparks of newly manifested mutants, when the explosion in Times Square sent a shockwave through the astral plane.
It wasn't just a physical detonation. It was a localized eruption of extraordinary energies.
I pushed my mind toward Manhattan, the glowing red projection of the city blooming before my closed eyes. There were multiple signatures down there. One was feral and ancient, a lycanthropic force that felt entirely out of place in the modern metropolis. Another was a strange, beautifully radiant tether connecting several minds—a psychic bond unlike anything I had ever encountered, vibrating with a golden, dominating frequency.
But it was the third signature that made my blood run cold.
It was a young man. From the brief psychic scan I managed to slip past the chaotic battle, I could almost feel the roaring, atomic inferno contained within his cellular structure. He was manipulating matter at a subatomic level, turning glass and fire into harmless snow.
*Fascinating,* I thought, my mind brushing against the edges of his consciousness. *And terrifying.*
If my readings were correct, this boy—Ronnie, his surface thoughts echoed—was a mutant of staggering power. He was easily an Alpha level mutant, but the sheer, raw potential of his atomic matrix suggested it was only a matter of time before he even crossed the threshold into Omega level. A mutant with the power to alter reality on a molecular scale, completely untrained, operating in the middle of a highly publicized superhuman skirmish.
Magneto would sense this. Erik would undoubtedly see a boy who could turn bullets to water and steel to ash as the ultimate weapon for his Brotherhood. I needed to reach him first. I needed to offer him the sanctuary of the school before he became a pawn in a much larger, darker war. As whatever team he's apart of won't be as safe for him as the mansion of this I'm sure.
I focused all of Cerebro's immense power, attempting to lock onto Ronnie's specific neural frequency to establish a telepathic bridge.
*Hold on, my boy. I am coming for you,* I projected into the ether.
I tracked his signature as it lifted away from Times Square, moving rapidly through the airspace over Manhattan in what I assumed was a cloaked aircraft. I narrowed the telepathic beam, preparing to introduce myself gently so as not to startle him.
Suddenly, the connection severed.
It wasn't a gentle fading of a signal. It was a violent, absolute blackout. One moment, Ronnie's atomic aura was burning brightly in my mind, and the next, he slammed into an impenetrable wall of static. I pushed harder, pouring my psionic strength into the void, but the shielding was flawless. It wasn't organic telepathic resistance; it was technological. A massive, incredibly sophisticated psychic Faraday cage had just swallowed an Omega-level mutant right in the heart of the Upper East Side.
I removed the helmet, the heavy metal doors of Cerebro hissing open to reveal the dimly lit corridor. My hands gripped the wheels of my chair, a profound sense of unease settling over me. There was a new faction in play. A team that not only possessed multiple enhanced individuals and potentially an Omega-level mutant, but also commanded technology capable of blinding me completely.
I needed to assemble the X-Men. The board had just changed, and we were suddenly playing blind.
***
Furry POV
The holographic projection on my desk looped for the fiftieth time. I leaned back in my chair, my single eye tracking the fluid, utterly devastating movements of the team that had just hijacked my city.
I was annoyed. No, that was an understatement. I was absolutely furious that a highly organized, heavily armed, and visibly super-powered paramilitary group had been operating in my backyard, and S.H.I.E.L.D. had absolutely zero actionable intelligence on their existence until they decided to throw a parade for themselves in Times Square.
But beneath the simmering rage, there was a cold, pragmatic satisfaction. I was happy.
About a week ago now, Sitwell had given me a fragmented report and blurry camera images of a ghost. A man who had effortlessly broken up a cartel operation at the docks, securing the vigilante known as the Punisher, before vanishing into thin air. We had been tearing the city apart trying to put a name to the face.
And now, he had simply walked up to a battery of news cameras, looked directly into the lenses, and introduced himself.
Alpha.
That was what the police scanners called him. While I wish it was that easy to get his real name But the facial recognition software, cross-referenced with the brief, unmasked footage Sitwell had managed to get when he first encountered them, gave me nothing absolutely nothing this Alpha was a ghost.
It was the most blatant, insulting thing I had encountered in years. No ghost can command a stealth dropship, a werewolf, three mutants, and Frank fucking Castle. Someone had built this team. Someone had funded them, trained them, and equipped most of the entire fucking team with what he recognized as unstable molecule suits and cloaking tech that made our own Quinjets look like paper airplanes.
The doors to my office slid open with a soft pneumatic hiss.
Clint Barton walked in first, his arms crossed, his eyes darting immediately to the tactical footage looping on the desk. Natasha Romanoff followed, her expression an unreadable mask of professional detachment. Phil Coulson brought up the rear, clutching a StarkPad tightly against his chest, looking entirely too excited about the wall-crawler in the red and black suit.
"You rang, Boss?" Barton asked, leaning against the glass wall overlooking the Triskelion's bustling command center.
"I'm assuming you've all seen the evening news," I said, pausing the hologram right on the frame where Alpha stood over the broken body of Norman Osborn. "Or as the press is currently calling them, the Defenders."
"Flawless tactical execution," Natasha observed, her voice smooth and analytical. "Their sniper overwatch neutralized the secondary threats before the ground team even registered them. The containment strategy was textbook. They aren't vigilantes. They're soldiers."
"And their tech is decades ahead of the curve," Coulson chimed in, tapping his screen. "The webbing the spider guy used has a tensile strength that defies current materials science. And the fire-guy... S.H.I.E.L.D. sensors picked up a massive radiation spike, but zero fallout. Our scientists think but aren't one hundred percent sure he just rewrote the molecular structure of the bombs."
I stood up, resting my knuckles on the cold glass of the desk. "I don't care if they can turn lead into gold. I care that they did it without my permission. This 'Alpha' is the linchpin. He commands absolute loyalty from a team that includes Frank Castle, a man who doesn't play well with anyone, let alone a guy who looks like he's barely in his mid twenties."
"So what's the play?" Barton asked, narrowing his eyes at the frozen image of the Alpha.
"The play is that you are going to find them," I ordered, my voice leaving absolutely no room for debate. "They have a front company. Aegis Defense. Run by a former agent named Ben Parker. I want taps on every phone, I want eyes on every contract they sign, and I want to know exactly where that stealth jet disappeared to. Find their base. Find out who is pulling Alpha's strings if he has any. And I want this information yesterday."
Natasha tilted her head slightly. "And if they don't want to be found, Director?"
"Then you make them want to," I replied coldly. "The world is getting weirder by the day. We have an Asgardian god of thunder dropping out of the sky in New Mexico, and now we have a private army of superhumans claiming they're the only ones who can protect us. I'm not leaving the fate of this planet in the hands of a twenty something year old kid who talks like he's a untouchable god above the law or us."
Coulson nodded, his demeanor shifting to pure professionalism. "We'll get it done, sir."
As the three of them filed out of the office to begin the hunt, I looked back down at the paused hologram. Alpha was looking directly into the camera. There was a supreme, unsettling confidence in his eyes. A promise of absolute control.
I hit a button on my console, bringing up a heavily encrypted file on the Tesseract.
"We'll see about that, kid," I muttered to the empty room. "We'll see."