## Apocalypse - The Chimeric Mutant
Apocalypse was, in truth, the only unnatural mutant Tao had encountered. The man had so heavily integrated the powers of others over centuries that 'Chimeric' or even 'external' felt like a more accurate title.
From his memories, his base powers were surprisingly mundane: enhanced durability and size alteration.
Tao had a genuine 'what the hell?' moment until he delved deeper.
Apocalypse's ascension to a demigod-like state ~ gaining vast abilities like shapeshifting, density control, and energy projection ~ was achieved by interfacing with and utilizing Celestial technology for consciousness transfer. The Celestial known as Oneg the Prober had implanted the X-gene in early human ancestors, tying mutant origins directly to cosmic experimentation.
But the basis for such genetic weirdness had an even earlier origin, from another Progenitor Celestial that had decomposed on Earth. Regardless, Apocalypse's true breakthrough came from encountering Cable, the time-traveling Nathan Summers. From him, Apocalypse acquired the techno-organic virus, which beamed the information on Celestial technology directly into his mind ~ knowledge he'd have had little chance of acquiring otherwise.
That virus was a paradox born in a time loop, Tao realized. A large number of splinters in that segment of the timeline must have already occurred, making verifying its true origin close to impossible.
The Celestial technology enabled a profound integration. With each consciousness transfer, his essence fused with new powers: matter manipulation, spatial shifting, telekinesis, psychic suggestion, augmentation, and knowledge extraction.
Recreating his suite of abilities through purely biological means was therefore entirely impractical and for him, less fun.
Yet, he was an experiential gold mine. He possessed vast, intuitive knowledge of biological manipulation, using his powers to draw out the hidden potential in other mutants over centuries. He lacked modern terminology, but his raw power and empirical understanding were more than sufficient for the LoHP to pierce through his complete genetic makeup and intuitive knowledge.
Lastly, Jean Grey.
## Jean Grey - The Gilded Cage
All the while, his nigh-omniscient divine sense enveloped Earth, allowing him to observe the flow of events without direct intervention. The task at hand though -It was a relaxed process, and about a day on earth passed while he examined each subject's abilities without making contact.
He made sure his presence remain un - discovered through their psionic energy sensitivity or some danger sense some characters had.
The telepathic nature of Jean Grey and Xavier was different. Her secondary mutation was already present. But most of all, it was her soul emanation that got his attention.
It feels the same as having a soul attribute in a cultivation world: flame. He hadn't looked directly into her soul yet. Since she wasn't recreated he didn't know full picture yet.
The psionic energy surrounding her had a distinct, pinkish hue.
Her telepathy wasn't passive listening; it was an active, almost aggressive process of encroaching upon and duplicating fragments of memories ~ down to bodily sensations ~ directly into her own mind on auto-pilot. An empath, in short.
A little while later, seeing her and her friends leave the mansion, he focused his divine sense on her once more, this time allowing it to pass directly through her soul. She immediately stilled, her head tilting to air above, as if feeling a distant, inexplicable pressure. Luckily, it was his divine sense, not his soul itself, that she sensed. Meanwhile, the mutant Xavier in his mansion felt nothing.
***
Then, his sense burned.
The last thing he perceived was a fire ~ a fire so brilliant it illuminated the very core of her being. A fire so bright it revealed the magnificent, terrifying form of the Phoenix, carved into the deepest depths of her soul, now even visible in her eyes for a moment.
For the first time, he had encountered something he could not directly comprehend through his normal means at all. This meant the energy level of this entity was beyond even the divine dao energy he possessed.
Jean has a Phoenix seed within her. This can't be a coincidence.
As a non-linear being, it was accurate to say the Phoenix knew Jean Grey was its other half before this particular multiverse even began. It was as if she was always, irrevocably, destined to be the perfect host.
Her phoenix seed awakening is also the timeline event I can feel the designs of. It has a great weight attached to it. Meaning any action I normally take or introduce, that can potentially implicate its happening has very high threshold during that period.
It will let the events proceed on its own leading to it, as if some another is there messing with the fate. Meaning that event will happen one way or the other.
Its power and sensitivity are certainly profound, he thought, considering he was using a concealed divine ability. This was the same technique he'd employed when walking among exiles like Fuxi in the Chaos Ancient Demon Land, and they had never noticed a thing.
Since he had no intention of stalking her, he would need his own "Jean Grey" to understand the Phoenix more deeply. He would have to wait until she truly manifested her potential.
Returning back to immediate surrounding, he sensed that the Apocalypse duplicate had been trying to rewire his body for a while. But he couldn't. If this guy had such brainy ideas from the beginning instead of just attacking with sand or space, I might have been interested.
Seeing the exhausted Apocalypse clone and his group in the pocket dimension, he simply waved his hand seeing the irrelevance.
They dissolved, disappearing back into the raw creation energy as motes of lights from which they were formed.
## Ladies in Marvel Reality
Since interesting things are about to happen, wouldn't it be boring if I were alone here? A smile touched his lips. How would Ning' and Ziyun find this strange new world?
He reached inward, his consciousness piercing the boundary of his ring world. Inside, they were suspended in a pocket of altered time, a field he had set to flow a million times slower than the outside, giving them peace while months passed for him.
Now, he carefully released the temporal acceleration, synchronizing their flow to a thousand times his own.
As a precaution, he released all matter from his domain back outside. He wove a purification ability to form a clean space inside. Then, he folded the space around his position, stepping into a state of null presence. His personal shield began its most delicate task: subtly rewriting the local laws to temporarily include the foundational rules of the Heavenly World energies from the Tales of Demons and Gods reality.
It was a necessary bubble of home to facilitate their safe arrival. The world around him became void once more, a dark & blank canvas.
With a thought, he manifested them.
Side-by-side, the two beauties appeared, their soul forms materializing from motes of light. But their spiritual body ballooned to enormous size just like when he first appeared. It isn't that they were big, but he was shrunk after entering void. Standing in middle, he adjusted the rules once again before they adapt to it, returning them to regular size.
Their eyelids fluttered as the last of the temporal stasis released them. They took a slow, reflexive breath, feeling a familiar comfort.
"Tao... why the lights out? Wait, who are you?"
Ziyun's voice was a mixture of confusion and wariness, her eyes struggling to pierce the absolute darkness he had created for their introduction. Snow elemental attacks were already brewing in her hands.
## Curious birds
But Xiao Ning'er was faster, her perception sharper. She gasped, not at the darkness, but at the sudden, vibrant connection snapping into place within her soul once again.
"What the... Tao? Why do you look like that? It's....wrong. You have... no trace of cultivation."
Her words were laced with disbelief.
A playful curiosity sparked within him. "How do I look?"
Both were still reeling, their divine senses ~ now operating in a new context ~ registering a level of foreign detail they had never before perceived solely on what they would call , a living gallery of being human. Him. This reality allowed such hyper-rendered perception that for them, he looked jarringly out of place, almost uncanny.
It was overwhelming. Ziyun, reaching out instinctively, patted his arm slightly ~ a gentle, familiar touch.
The result was immediate and alarming. His skin, fragile and mortal, tore under the slightest pressure. The membrane of air current between the void and his new shell broke, causing the flesh to burst into a blood mist, which then instantly froze under her unconscious, slight release of power.
The pain was annoying, but considering the trials he'd endured, an injury to a mere flesh coat couldn't affect a cultivator like him.
Seeing her horrified look and the crimson streak, he sighed softly. With a mere thought, the flesh knitted itself back together, leaving no trace of the injury.
"Careful, ladies. The flesh is just a makeup template, temporarily powerless."
The sheer fragility of his flesh was a stark, uncharacteristic contrast to the overwhelming abilities he had always demonstrated. Ning'er's eyes widened with concern.
"You're okay? What happened when we were inside?"
"I am fine," he reassured her. "I was merely modeling a form compatible with this world's reality and its granular laws. This body is just condensed flesh, an attempt to interface with any latent power systems this place might offer. Just starting from scratch."
While Ning'er was up close, inspecting him with a furrowed brow, Ziyun ~ who had stepped back ~ was observing from a slight distance, her eyes gleaming with a sudden, mischievous understanding.
A simple thought pulsed through their soul link, and he instantly knew what her spirit sense was so intently inspecting about his new... anatomy.
"What technique is that?" her mental voice whispered, full of implication.
"I will let you know later...." he sent back, a wave of fond exasperation following the thought.
He rolled his eyes. "Enough of that," he chided gently seeing she was still scrutinizing the same aspect.
Before they could ask more, he invited their perception to the world beyond our dark pocket. "Are we lost in some space?" Ziyun asked, stating the obvious.
"No. I merely blocked the outside to facilitate your entry. There are some things you need to know before we mix in. But before that," he said, his voice warm, "welcome to your first reality hopping. This world will be a fresh treat for your senses."
"I will now adjust my abilities in a moment to let you see it. You will experience a slightly jarring sensation as your control over your own abilities shifts. You will still feel as if in void but can see outside. Do not activate any techniques, or condense your physical body nor expand your divine sense just yet."
He saw the excited anticipation in their eyes. Slowly, meticulously, he began to layer the new basic rules of this reality into our protective domain, augmenting the home-rules he had established. Obviously not in full capacity, but just letting the vision outside in and his divine sense out.
As he expanded the domain to encompass a small patch of the outside world, they visibly stiffened.
A wave of discomfort passed over them just from that ~ the unnerving feeling of a control they had known since their first steps in cultivation suddenly slipping away, like a limb falling asleep.
He watched as they reached inwardly, one by one, for the elemental laws they were so familiar with, only to find them distant and muted. A training session might be needed to pick them up once more...
But that discomfort was quickly washed away by sheer wonder.
They were instantly mesmerized by the scenery that bloomed around us. The alien architecture of the Xavier mansion, the strange colors of the sky, the texture of the grass ~ it was all so novel and hyper-detailed.
They moved to fly down to the ground within the confines of his shield, eager to touch these new details, just as he had done.
He let them satisfy their curiosity while accounting for any violation affecting the reality outside.
"There are adjustments to be made first. For now, just observe." He gestured to his own new, vulnerable body as a reminder. "I shall share the sight of the outside world beyond through our soul connection."
Opening his mind, he fed them a stream of his own concealed divine sense, a perfect, real-time panorama of the entire world around him. They were quickly engrossed, their consciousnesses darting to every nook and cranny, observing people, technology, and flora they had never seen or known.
From the subatomic to seeing the Earth from the Moon, the star Sun, they drank in the wonders of this new reality, while he split his focus, his own senses locked onto the tense, unfolding drama within the manor nearby.
## Outside the Domain
He had witnessed the shapeshifter, Mystique, plead with Charles Xavier, and felt the immediate aftermath as he ascended to Cerebro. His mind, a brilliant star in the psychic firmament, expanded its reach, and Tao felt the gentle, probing pressure of his amplified consciousness brushing against the spherical domain he had woven around us.
His ability was like a searchlight, skimming the surface of a deep ocean. Tao's thoughts, however, operated on a different temporal plane altogether ~ vastly above the resolution of his machine.
He synchronized the field's fluctuations with Xavier's probes, crafting a cage of psychic invisibility around our presence just in time.
To his perception, it would appear as a sphere of reality simply dissolving into nothingness, leaving behind a perfect disguise.
A new, dissonant frequency soon grated against his senses. It was Apocalypse, his innate psychic immunity acting not only as a shield but as a parasitic entity. He had reverse-engineered the connection, using both telepathy and technopathy to seize control of Cerebro itself, turning Xavier into a puppet.
The result was immediate and terrifying for the mortals below.
Nuclear arsenals, current humanity's final argument against existence, began their desperate ascent to the heavens. The silos opened and the oceans churned as almost sixty thousand warheads ignited worldwide, creating a forest of rising fire.
The ladies, Ziyun and dear Xiao Ning, watched the fiery trails pierce the atmosphere with innocent curiosity. The sheer malice of the weapons was lost on them; they saw only the spectacle.
"Is it some kind of Sky Lantern Festival?" Xiao Ning, wondered aloud, her eyes reflecting the thousands of distant, climbing flames.
The notion was so endearingly naive, framing the end of the world as a celebration of lights, that he felt a sudden wave of affection. Feeling cute, he decided not to spoil the mood. He offered no correction.