Using the computer in the flood-control operations room, everyone quickly discovered where the dam's power was really going. Most of the electricity generated by the turbines was being diverted to a single location deep inside the base. That was where Stryker had rebuilt the cerebro unit he ripped out of Xavier's school, and where Professor Xavier was now being held under Jason's control.
Worse, the setup was already active.
Locke clapped his hands once to pull everyone's attention back to him, his voice cutting through the tension before the room could dissolve into panic. "Listen up. The priority is stopping the Professor. If we work together—"
"I'm going after Stryker."
Logan didn't even let him finish. His eyes were locked on the surveillance screen, fixed on the squat middle-aged man moving through the corridors, and the look on his face was pure murder. It wasn't anger anymore. It was something colder, deeper, and far more settled.
Locke paused for a beat, then exhaled through his nose. He got it. A man who had your wife murdered wasn't just an enemy. That kind of hatred didn't compromise, didn't negotiate, and didn't fade.
"Fine," Locke said at last. "Then the rest of us will go—"
"I have to save the children first."
Storm's voice was sharp and immediate. She was staring at another feed now, at the mutant kids Stryker had imprisoned, and there was pity in her eyes mixed with fury. She wasn't asking for permission. She was making a decision.
Locke went quiet for a second, then spread his hands. "All right. Save the kids. I'm not arguing with that."
He turned again, already trying to salvage some kind of organized plan. "The rest of us—"
"I'm going to find Scott."
Jean's eyes were fixed on the screen where Cyclops appeared under enemy control, and the pain on her face said the rest. Fear, guilt, love—every bit of it was written there. She looked like she was holding herself together by force.
Locke clicked his tongue in his head. Great. Love.
Then Kurt raised a hand and awkwardly said he wanted to go with Storm to help rescue the children. By the time the dust settled, the "main force" left to save Professor Xavier had somehow become Locke, Colossus, Blade, and Frank.
Locke stared at the group in silence for a moment and felt his mouth twitch. Seriously? I'm the outsider here, and I'm the one getting stuck with the actual mission? Are these people more ready for Xavier to die than I am?
Frank shot him a sideways glance that practically said, These are the teammates you brought me? Locke rolled his eyes and gave a slight shrug. He hadn't planned this mess either.
At that moment, he finally understood how things had gone so wrong in the original chain of events. Back then, Magneto and Mystique had reached Cerebro ahead of everyone else, hijacked the situation, and switched Xavier's target from mutants to ordinary humans. Locke used to think that twist came out of nowhere. Now he understood perfectly.
It happened because Xavier's allies were unbelievably gifted at making the worst possible decisions.
And now, with Magneto dead by Locke's own hand and Mystique never entering the picture, the role of "person who has to step in and fix this catastrophe at the last second" had somehow landed on him.
Fantastic.
"All right," he muttered under his breath. "Don't blame me later."
One by one, Logan, Storm, Jean, and the others peeled off into different corridors. Locke turned to Blade and Frank, his tone shifting into something more practical. "This place is packed with evidence of Stryker's human experimentation and mutant research. You two collect everything you can. Files, footage, samples, logs. Don't miss anything."
Then he looked at Colossus and jerked his head toward the inner corridor. "Come on. Let's go save the Professor."
The two of them had barely rounded the first corner before Locke stopped abruptly, as if he had just remembered something. He reached up and patted Colossus on the shoulder with a perfectly straight face. "Actually, I just remembered I've got something else to handle. You go save the Professor first. I'll be right back."
Colossus stood there, blinking at him in confusion. "...What?"
Meanwhile, Logan followed Stryker deeper into the base, and Locke quietly followed Logan.
The entire facility shook with a sudden violent tremor. Fighting was breaking out in half a dozen places now, so the noise barely stood out. But then a cold drop of water hit Locke's cheek.
He stopped, looked up, and narrowed his eyes. Fine cracks had started to spread across the ceiling above, spiderwebbing through the concrete of the dam overhead.
He let out a helpless breath. Somewhere in this base, Jean was apparently "disciplining" her boyfriend with enough force to damage structural concrete. The Phoenix power in her had clearly been simmering for a while, and now that it was leaking out, the whole dam was paying the price.
Still, the cracks weren't catastrophic yet. This kind of damage wouldn't bring the entire structure down instantly. Even in the worst case, the base probably had an hour before things became unrecoverable.
That was assuming nobody kept smashing things.
On the other side of the base, Logan stepped into a large chamber and immediately felt the memory hit him like a fist to the chest. Skeletal diagrams lined the room, some of his own body and some from failed experiments. In the center stood a massive tank, and beside it a blazing industrial furnace where molten metal churned in thick, glowing waves.
Stryker stepped out from a side corridor, calm as ever, with a slender woman following silently behind him. He smiled like a man revisiting an old workshop.
"Hello, little wolf," he said. "Do you remember this place? This is where you were remade. This is where I created you."
The sight of him lit every nerve in Logan's body on fire. With a metallic snikt, six claws burst through his skin, and his voice dropped into a growl thick with rage. "Created me? This is where you trapped me. Tortured me. Ruined my life. I'll never forget this place, and I sure as hell won't let you forget it either."
Stryker's smile never faltered. "I know you better than anyone in the world, Logan. Better than you know yourself. Without me, what are you? Just another wild animal nobody would have cared about. I liked you, once. Tough, stubborn, impossible to break. I saw something of myself in you." He sighed theatrically. "The only disappointing part is that you're a mutant."
His expression twisted in false regret. "It erased all my good feelings at once. Like watching a wolf king turn into some filthy stray dog. What a waste."
Logan had heard enough. "Die, you pig."
He launched himself forward, only for a blur to shoot in from the side. A kick caught him in midair and sent him spinning before he crashed hard to the floor. When he looked up, the woman behind Stryker was already standing between them.
Stryker chuckled. "Logan, meet Lady Deathstrike. She'll keep you busy."
Then he turned and walked away.
Logan tried to push past, but Lady Deathstrike blocked him without a word. "Move," he growled, claws raised. She didn't even blink.
Before he could lunge, a voice came from behind him, easy and completely unhurried. "Logan, leave her to me. Go chase Stryker."
Logan turned and found Locke walking in, looking far too relaxed for someone inside a collapsing military death lab. "Weren't you supposed to save the Professor?"
Locke waved one hand and kept his eyes on Lady Deathstrike. "Saving her first still counts as saving someone, doesn't it? Controlled beautiful woman, tragic circumstances, violent boss issues. Same category."
Logan stared at him like he'd lost his mind. "The Professor is about to kill every mutant on Earth, and you want to save her first?"
Locke shrugged. "You're the one who actually knows the guy. If you're not panicking, why should I?"
Logan opened his mouth, then stopped. For a second he looked like he genuinely didn't know how to answer that.
Locke snorted and flicked his fingers dismissively. "Relax. I'm kidding. I already sent someone to get him."
Logan immediately seized on that. "Storm? Jean?"
"Colossus."
Logan blinked. "...And who else?"
"Colossus."
There was a long, heavy pause as that answer landed.
Locke gave him a friendly shove. "Go. Chase Stryker. I promise you won't die."
Logan still looked suspicious. "You sure?"
Locke raised an eyebrow. "Logan, you are talking to the guy who saved New York and kept millions of people alive. Are you really going to question me right now?"
That seemed to do it. Logan hesitated, then nodded sharply and took off down the corridor after Stryker. Lady Deathstrike tried to follow, but Locke flashed forward and caught her wrist. She twisted and strained with all her strength, but his grip didn't budge.
Once Logan was completely gone, Locke smiled at her, leaned in, and bit into her neck.
A muffled sound caught in her throat as his blood entered her system. His vampiric bloodline had already evolved far beyond its original state, and the transformation took hold almost instantly. At the same time, the foreign control in her body—the biochemical manipulation derived from Jason's altered brain tissue—began to break apart under the pressure of the mutation.
A few moments later, her dazed eyes cleared.
She looked at Locke, then lowered her head obediently, her voice soft and almost catlike. "Master."
Locke nodded like that was the most normal thing in the world, then walked over to the adamantium furnace. Reaching behind his back, he pulled out several custom metal bands and secured them around the containment unit.
Anton and his son had built them specially for this. As long as those heating strips stayed active, the molten adamantium wouldn't cool and solidify, even if Locke moved the entire furnace somewhere else. Once adamantium set, it became nearly impossible to melt down again. If he wanted to use this stuff for his Thunder Armor, he had to preserve it now.
The ground shook again, even harder this time.
Locke glanced up at the ceiling and clicked his tongue. Jean still wasn't done. At this rate Cyclops was going to need therapy, and the Avengers would probably get dragged into a property damage lawsuit.
He turned to Lady Deathstrike and pointed at the furnace. "Stay here and guard that."
Then he vanished into the corridor like a shadow.
At the entrance to Cerebro, the smoke from gunfire still hung in the air. Colossus stood in front of a thick alloy door, breathing hard, his mood thoroughly wrecked. He had fought his way through more than a dozen guards, but now this single reinforced barrier had brought him to a dead stop.
No matter how hard he punched, he could only leave shallow dents in the metal. His arms were still strong, his steel body still intact, but the door wouldn't give.
And now a different frustration had started to eat at him.
They were supposed to save mutants together. So why was he the only one here? Did none of them care? Had everyone else just dumped the real mission on him and run off? Even the so-called great hero had disappeared. Maybe Locke had already fled.
Some hero.
At that exact moment, the Professor inside completed the lock.
Every mutant on Earth had been targeted.
Jason, still wrapped in illusion and madness, whispered in Xavier's ear through the form of a little girl. "Kill them. Kill them all."
A terrifying psychic wave burst outward across the globe.
Colossus felt it first, but only by a fraction of a second. The pain hit him like something invisible trying to burst out from inside his skull. Across the base, mutants collapsed. Across the world, countless others felt the same thing. It didn't matter whether they were fighters, children, or civilians. The force was everywhere.
Jean, who had only just finished overpowering Scott, sensed it at once. Her face went white. "Cerebro," she breathed, horrified. "No… it's too late. How did this happen?"
Storm and Kurt, along with the children they had just freed, were already racing toward the chamber when the psychic pressure slammed into them. They dropped where they stood. Some of the children cried. Some screamed. Some just clutched their heads in terror, too overwhelmed to even speak.
Outside the door, Colossus dropped to one knee and hammered weakly at the metal with one fist. He refused to stop, even though every strike was weaker than the last. His eyes were full of helpless fury.
Then a cheerful voice suddenly came from behind him.
"Hey, little steel man. I'm here to save you."
Colossus turned with difficulty. It was Locke.
His vision was already blurring, and all he could think was, Too late, you bastard. He could feel the pressure in his skull rising toward a breaking point. One more second and his head was going to explode.
Then came a blast.
In an instant, the pain vanished.
Colossus sucked in a lungful of air and looked up in disbelief. Locke stood beside him grinning like he'd just pulled off a party trick.
Locke read the expression on his face and snorted. "What, you thought I wasn't doing anything?"
Colossus swallowed hard. "What did you do?"
Locke lifted one hand, and a faint arc of electricity snapped between his fingers. "Almost all the power from this dam is feeding Cerebro. Lucky for us, I happen to be very sensitive to electricity. I found the main supply lines and blew them apart. No power means Cerebro's just a pile of expensive junk."
Colossus exhaled shakily. He was too honest to hide it. "I'm sorry. I thought…"
"You thought I was a useless piece of trash, right?"
Colossus opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Locke waved it off and turned toward the door. With enough raw force, he could rip it open under a burst of rage. But behind it were Professor Xavier and Jason, two of the most dangerous telepaths on the planet. Apart from Jean with the Phoenix force, there probably wasn't another mutant alive who could match the pair of them mentally.
Most mutants existed in the ordinary range—levels one, two, and three. But some could evolve far beyond that under special circumstances. Apocalypse could do it. Xavier and Jason were already near that ceiling. If Locke just burst through the door carelessly, the two of them might join forces and tear straight through his mind before he could react.
His soul defenses were strong, but probably not that strong.
So caution it was.
He stepped forward and hammered the alloy door over and over, denting a broad section of it until a crack began to spread through the frame. He still didn't go in immediately. Instead, he raised a hand, aimed through the split, and sent a bolt of lightning lancing into the room.
The current struck both men at once and dropped them unconscious.
Only then did Locke pry the door open and step inside.
He looked at the two unconscious figures in their chairs, and the system responded at once. Both of them now registered as Diamond-tier prey, just like Magneto had. Earlier the system hadn't identified Xavier that way, but now it did.
Which meant one thing.
The psychic attack had already killed people.
Maybe it was the weak. Maybe the sick. Maybe mutants on the edge of death already. Maybe newborns. Whatever the count was, it had tipped the balance.
Locke's appetite sharpened.
A Diamond reward required a three-kill chain, but that didn't actually sound difficult anymore. There were plenty of people in the world who qualified. The Vice President. Foreign leaders. Any number of powerful bastards with enough blood under their names to register.
Constant killing would obviously be a problem. That invited chaos, suspicion, retaliation. But every now and then?
That seemed manageable.
The real issue was emotional rating. Xavier and Jason were both absurdly strong mentally, and pushing targets like this to a five-star emotional state wasn't easy. Jason, especially, had been so thoroughly twisted and broken by Stryker that he barely counted as normal anymore. The one person most likely to trigger a violent emotional spike in him was Stryker himself.
Locke clicked his tongue.
The higher the tier, the more trouble the prey became.
And wasting a gift pack of this level by settling for anything less than five stars would be a crime by itself. A few hundred attribute points from a perfect pull would be worth more than bombing half a battlefield overseas.
So what could shake them hard enough?
Jason was easy. Use Stryker.
Even if Logan had already killed the real one, Mystique could still impersonate him. As for Xavier… maybe he could be taught—
....
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